Student-Mentor Collaboration Grants

To be eligible for a Scholarly Project Student-Mentor Collaboration Grant, applicants must:

• Be a currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate student in a degree-seeking program at St. Cloud State University and admitted to a major at the time of application and throughout the period in which grant funds are used.
• Conduct the proposed project under the guidance of a St. Cloud State faculty or staff mentor and demonstrate a clear connection to the student's academic program, scholarly interests, and professional goals.
• Complete all proposed project activities within the current fiscal year. Projects that have previously received funding through the Student-Mentor Collaboration Grant program are not eligible for additional support.
• Submit a single joint application for projects involving two or more student collaborators. Multiple or duplicate applications for the same project will not be considered.
• Projects involving two or more student collaborators must submit a single joint application. Multiple or duplicate submissions for the same project will be ineligible for review.
• Submit no more than one proposal per application deadline. Students may receive only one Student-Mentor Collaboration Grant award per academic year.

Additional Requirement for Professional Presentation Travel Grants

In addition to the eligibility requirements above, applicants seeking a Professional Presentation Travel Grant must:

• Have completed, or substantially completed, a scholarly or creative project that has been accepted for presentation at a professional conference.
• Provide documentation of conference acceptance. 

Overview

All proposals must include a clear explanation of requested costs. Budget justifications should provide sufficient detail on the cost, quantity, and purpose of each item, and clearly explain how each expense supports the proposed project and contributes to achieving its objectives. Detailed justifications help reviewers assess the necessity, reasonableness, and value of each requested expenditure.

• All purchases and reimbursement requests must comply with St. Cloud State University Business Services policies and procedures, as well as all applicable university purchasing requirements.
• Any non-consumable equipment, materials, or other tangible items purchased with grant funds remain the property of St. Cloud State University. Upon completion of the project, these items must be transferred to the faculty mentor for appropriate stewardship and future academic use.
• Award funds must be fully expended by June 30 of the award year. Unspent funds may not be carried forward to a subsequent fiscal year.

Allowed costs

Scholarly Project Grants

• Materials and supplies (will remain property of St. Cloud State University).
• Technology (needs to be purchased through Husky Tech and will remain property of St. Cloud State University).
• Travel and accommodations required to conduct scholarly project. Note: If accommodations are requested please note this in the "Other" line under the Travel Expense Category of the estimated project budget spreadsheet.

Professional Presentation Travel Grants

• Registration fees
• Airfare/Transportation
• Technology connection fee at conference (up to $50)

Disallowed costs

• Expenses from prior fiscal years
• Faculty activity or travel
• Meals
• Lodging/Hotel
• Student stipends
• Gift cards
• Sales tax
• Study abroad programs
• Computers/laptops/tablets/printers
• Items available for check out through the University Library’s collection of multimedia equipment.
• Items available in the academic department or college/school’s supplies, materials and equipment inventory.
• Poster printing
• Poster tubes

Proposals will be evaluated on the following:

• Meets all eligibility requirements.
• Clarity of the project's goals and objectives.
• Alignment of the proposed research, scholarly, or creative activity with the applicant's discipline or academic program.
• Strength and feasibility of the methodology, including how project objectives will be achieved.
• Realism and completeness of the project timeline.
• Quality and clarity of the dissemination plan, including plans for presentations, publications, grant submissions, or other scholarly products.
• Completeness and justification of the budget, including whether requested expenses are reasonable, itemized, and directly support project activities.
• Overall quality of the proposal, including completeness, organization, professionalism, and accessibility to reviewers from a variety of disciplines.
• Effectiveness and clarity of the mentoring plan.

Note: Applications must use the required budget template. Proposals submitted with alternate budget formats may be returned without review.

Step 1:  Work with your faculty mentor to review the program guidelines and evaluation criteria as you plan your project and application.

Step 2:  Discuss your project and intent to apply with your faculty mentor as upon submission your proposal will be automatically routed to them for review and approval. Original work, authored by student applicant(s) is required and citations are mandatory when you incorporate research, words, ideas, data, or information that is not your own.

Step 3: Log into your Student-Mentor Collaborations Portal for Huskies using your StarID.

• The system allows you to save your progress as you work on completing your application. 
• Do not click on the "Submit" button until your application is complete.
• A complete application includes the application, Estimated Project Budget using the Budget Worksheet available in Sharepoint, supporting documents and budget justification items.

Step 4: Click on "Submit" to put forward your COMPLETE application for consideration.  It must be submitted prior to the posted deadline above or it will not be considered.

Step 5: Once your completed application will be routed to your faculty mentor for review and approval, then later distributed to a review panel for review and consideration.

IMPORTANT:

• Please note that the review process takes time, so please be patient. 
• Updates will be sent out as soon as the review process is concluded.