FAST Award Program
About FAST
The purpose of the FAST Awards program is to encourage the participation of undergraduate students in discipline-specific scholarly or creative work. Each funded undergraduate team should be able to support 1-3 students working together on a single scholarly or creative project under the mentoring of either one Sam Houston State University faculty member or an interdisciplinary team of 2 or more SHSU faculty members. The student teams are expected to work on their project over approximately 10 weeks, between June 1, 2021 and August 15, 2021.
Application Deadline:
5 p.m., December 9, 2020
2015 FAST Projects 2014 FAST Projects
Eligibility: Tenured/tenure track and clinical faculty are eligible to apply for a FAST award. Full-time undergraduate students enrolled at SHSU during the spring semester of 2021 and returning for the fall semester of 2021 are eligible to be team members. Faculty mentors may submit only one proposal. Note – All Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) protocols must be completed before funds will be distributed. IRB and IACUC guidelines are available on the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs website at https://www.shsu.edu/dept/office-of-research-and-sponsored-programs/.
Funding: Each student team member will receive $2000 for participating in the summer project and each team’s faculty mentor will receive $4000. It is expected that faculty mentors will use the $4000 as salary (to be split among faculty mentors if the team is interdisciplinary); however, if needed, the money can be requested to defray students’ expenses associated with conducting the project, such as approved travel to conduct fieldwork, data acquisition, human subjects’ costs, specialized supplies or materials, small equipment purchases, or computer software not presently available on campus. Faculty mentors who wish to use the $4000 for student expenses must justify such use in the project proposal and must submit a completed budget form with the application. Please be advised that faculty mentors planning to teach 4 classes during the summer of 2021 or have full summer salary funded by an existing grant are not eligible for additional salary from the FAST Awards program. We anticipate funding 6-8 FAST teams during the summer of 2021.
Selection: Awards to conduct scholarly or creative projects will be granted by a competitive selection process. The EURECA Advisory Council, an interdisciplinary committee composed of faculty from each college and representatives from campus programs, will evaluate and prioritize proposals for funding based on these criteria: 1) design and feasibility of the project’s plan, 2) significance of the expected results to your discipline, 3) potential contributions the project will make to the students’ future studies and/or future careers, and 4) the level and type of student involvement in the project. Outstanding proposals will have clearly delineated roles for each student member of the team, will strongly emphasize what the student team members will gain from this experience, and will clearly outline which aspects of the project each team member can lay claim to as their contribution.
Outcomes: Upon completion of the project each FAST team will be required to present their work at either the Undergraduate Research Symposium, hosted by the Elliott T. Bowers Honors College or The Woodlands Center Student Research Conference (both held in April, 2021). Additionally, each FAST team is required to submit a final report to the EURECA Center that includes 1) a one-page PDF document written by the faculty mentor(s) that briefly describes the process and findings/results of their funded project, and 2) a one page reflection report from each student member outlining his or her role in the project and the project’s impact on his or her professional development. These reports will be made publicly available on the EURECA website; therefore, they should be well-written for a lay audience. Any publications and/or presentations must acknowledge the support provided by the EURECA Center and should be reported to the EURECA Advisory Council. The EURECA Center also strongly encourages students involved in summer FAST teams to present their work at state or regional conferences, or in juried competitions as appropriate in their discipline.
Award Notification: The Summer 2021 FAST teams will be announced in February 2021.
Application Process: Completed applications are due by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 and must include the following:
1. A separate cover page
2. A two-page proposal, written in an interdisciplinary style, that
Describes the project’s objectives, the methods/approach to be used, and expected outcomes for summer 2021
Follow up activities to be completed in the fall (2021) and spring (2022) semesters,
An indication of whether this is a new, or part of an ongoing, project,
The significance of the expected results, and
If requesting money to cover student expenses rather than faculty salary support, a completed budget and budget justification form
3. A works cited page (as needed)
4. Student information forms for each student team member.
5. Budget form (as needed; available at www.shsu.edu/eureca)
6. A statement of interest from, and written by, each student team member (<200 words)
7. Besides a separate cover page, other documents must be merged into a single PDF file and sent by email to Madhusudan Choudhary (mchoudhary@shsu.edu) with FAST Award Proposal in the subject line.