We have pulled together a sampling of current funding opportunities into a FUNDING OPPS Excel workbook that is divided into the four CAS program areas, plus a Limited Submissions worksheet.
Arts and Sciences Internal Awards opportunities continue to attract competitive proposals. The deadline for the CAS Internal Awards Spring competition is March 6, 2007.
There are also USF internal award opportunities (see below). The deadline for the USF Internal Awards Spring competition is February 15, 2007.
If you don’t find what you are looking for on these worksheets, here are some funding opportunity resources we would like to recommend:
We have a lot planned for this semester, for both new investigators and more senior researchers. The Fall 2006 CAS Internal Awards competition was a huge success. Thank you to every person who submitted a proposal for consideration. In response to feedback from the faculty and review committees, the procedures and application forms have been modified to clarify and improve the process. The Spring competition call will be coming out in the next couple of weeks.
We closed 2006 with $14.7 Million in award dollars – great work and let’s keep up the momentum! We will be hosting a workshop series that will address:
Our office is organizing an information session to address “Going electron ic at the NIH” the new NIH 424 forms and their impact on the proposal submission process.
We will also host a faculty coffee this Spring – an open forum for casual discussion. We are here to support you in your pursuit of excellent research and scholarship.
Welcome back and Happy New Year,
Cheryl L. Kirstein
Associate Dean for Research & Scholarship
Halfway through the academic year seems an appropriate time for some updates, etc.
First, and effective at the start of the new year is the renaming of our Department of Mathematics to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Of course, this is still a long way from my favorite department name at a previous institution – the Department of Redundancy Department.
Second, the Dean's Office welcomes Professor Julie Harmon from Chemistry as Faculty Coordinator for Special Projects, replacing Professor Paul Dosal of History. Paul is now the Executive Director of ENLACE Florida. Julie will be working closely with Arthur Guilford, Associate Dean for Faculty and Program Development and Interim CEO of USF Sarasota-Manatee.
Third, we are gearing up for this year's round of federal plus-up requests and state legislative budget requests. Last year three of our seven plus-up requests were picked up by the Board of Trustees for its package of requests to our Federal legislative delegation. We hope to be more successful this year. The final phases of the state LBR process are a ways off but there is an end of the month deadline for preproposals.
Fourth, the Graduate School and its Dean, Dr. Delcie Durham, have been at the center of managing four research thrust proposals designed to build up the University's graduate education and research portfolio. Faculty in Arts & Sciences are deeply involved in three of the four areas and will benefit from the resources behind these initiatives.
Finally, I would like to thank both the CAS Faculty Development and the CAS Honors & Awards Committees for the time and energy invested to provide peer review of all proposals! Three out of four of all proposals submitted were fully funded in the Fall 2006 competition.
So best wishes for a intellectual lively and stimulating semester – which it is sure to be if you can find the time to attend some of the cool upcoming events organized by the Humanities Institute and its Director Bill Scheuerle. You can find out about these events here in the Institute's Spring 2007 newsletter: http://www.cas.usf.edu/humanitiesInstitute/newsletter/volumeIII-II.pdf.
John S.
CAS Grant Writing Workshops – This semester we are offering a series of Grant Writing Workshops for all CAS faculty, post-docs and RAs. Each of the below workshops will be held in SCA 222. The dates have been selected in such a way as not to conflict with class schedules.
January 26 Overview: External Funding Information & Opportunities
February 9 All About Budgets
March 30 Developing Project Content
April 13 Figuring Out Proposal Forms
To register, please send your name, department, and telephone number to casresearch@cas.usf.edu. If you have any questions, please feel free to call Denise Burgan at 974-3602.
CAS Faculty Coffee – All faculty are invited to join us on January 23, 2007 from 9:00-10:00 AM in CPR 245 for coffee and conversation. There is no specific topic, just an open forum. If your schedule permits; stop by for a few moments of casual conversation over freshly brewed coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts! We look forward to seeing many of you then!
Information Session – the NIH “is going electronic” and has introduced a new set of forms called 424. For those interested, please join us for a special information session on 424 forms. It is scheduled for March 9, 2007 in SCA 222 from 9:30 am-11:30 am. To register, please send your name, department, and telephone number to casresearch@cas.usf.edu. If you have any questions, please call Denise Burgan at 974-3602.
http://videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?13569
Summer Grant Writing Workshops – There have been quite a few inquiries about the Summer Grant Writing workshops that have been coordinated by our office the last several years. Yes, we are planning on continuing these workshops. An email announcement with registration information will go out in April. Thank you for your continued enthusiasm for this very worthwhile and productive workshop series.
Re-Tooling Workshop for Research Faculty Our office will be designing a re-tooling workshop series for veteran researchers. What does re-tooling mean to you? One scientist may say it is learning the latest statistical packages; others may want to learn the “best practices” and approved “short-cuts” in navigating the recently implemented electronic submission web pages and their forms. The best source of information on what re-tooling means is you the faculty. Please send us your “wish list” for a re-tooling workshop series to casresearch@cas.usf.edu.
At the close of 2006, Jim Garey hosted a champagne event for his department, toasting the accomplishments of the superstar achievements for the Fall semester. Below we have highlighted the recent scholarly achievement of three outstanding faculty in the Cellular Micro and Molecular Biology (CMMB) division
Brian Livingston was part of the team that published the The Genome of the Sea Urchin Strongylocentrotus purpuratus as the cover story in Science. Also to his credit, Dr. Livingston’s proposal “Evolution of Genes Involved in the Formation of the Echinoderm Embryonic Skeleton” was recently awarded $375K by NSF. To learn more, click here for CV.
Jessica Moore had an article on the cover of October 2006 volume of the Genetics Journal on Zebrafish Genomic Instability Mutants and Cancer Susceptibility. Research interests: The modern theory of cancer is that it begins with changes to common cellular components resulting in the accumulation of mutations that lead to the over-proliferation and inappropriate growth. Citation: Moore, J.L., Rush, L.R., Breneman, C., Mohideen, M.P.K.and Cheng, K.C. (2006) Zebrafish genomic instability mutants and cancer susceptibility. Genetics, October issue, (cover article). Click here for a PDF version of the article
Kristina Schmidt had a first author publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Cover article, published November 28, 2006 | vol. 103 | no. 48 | 18196-18201 On April 7, Dr. Schmidt will be giving a talk for the BioStat International / Molecular Medicine Seminar Series on “Molecular Mechanisms of Eukaryotic Genome Instability”. Video conferencing available at the Children's Research Institute (V)
For more information on the CMMB Division check out their web site Cellular Micro and Molecular Biology division
There is a great sense of pride in the caliber of research and scholarship being produced by our faculty. These prestigious publications are just a sampling of quality work being done. We would like to recognize your faculty for their pursuit of scholarly excellence. Please allow this to serve as our formal request to every department Chair to write CASresearch@cas.usf.edu with your department’s superstar story for our next issue.
CAS Internal AwardsA raised glass, a champagne toast to another successful cycle of the CAS internal award winners! A special note of thanks to both the CAS Faculty Development and the CAS Honors & Awards Committees for the time and energy investing to provide peer review of all proposals! Three out of four proposals submitted were fully funded. A call for proposals for Spring 2007 will be going out soon with some changes to the application procedures. Please read the procedures and application carefully. Congratulations to all winners!! Remember that late or incomplete applications will not be considered. If you have any questions about your award, please contact our office directly.
$16M in Plus Up proposals were due in CAS on January 8th
Below is a list of last year's Plus Ups:
Capital Improvement Plan (CIPS) Priorities for AY 2008-09 requests are due January 25th. Dean Skvoretz is working with Jim Garey to pull together these initiatives. CIPS requests are due to the Provost’s Office on January 25th.
Provost Khator will appoint an Ad Hoc Committee of 6 Deans for the purpose of reviewing and evaluating all project proposals. Projects will be evaluated based on their alignment with federal, state, and university priorities, and weighted against their likelihood of being funded. Projects currently listed on the 2007-08 CIP will be automatically included for review and evaluation.
Proposals are reviewed and evaluated by the Council of Deans Ad Hoc Committee in February. The Council of Deans Ad Hoc Committee submits to Provost Khator their recommendations of projects ranked in priority order.
Legislative Budget Requests or LBRs for 2008-09 are due at the end of January. These are preliminary Legislative Budget Requests (LBR) proposals for 2008-09. Academic Affairs colleges/departments are invited to identify and recommend issues, topics, or challenges that might be appropriate for inclusion in USF’s Legislative Budget Request for 2008-09.
Pre-Proposals will be reviewed by a team identified by the Provost. Those considered to be the most significant and realistic for legislative action will be further developed prior to submission to the BOT and BOG. USF has in the past few years realized tremendous success with both State and Federal earmarks and financial support of proposals submitted.
The annual report to the State on the College’s Centers and Institutes is complete and has been submitted to the Provost for the Board of Governors. Through the Research Centers and Institutes, we are making significant contributions toward the University goals for community engagement. USF is one of 76 U.S. colleges and universities that are deemed the most engaged with their local communities, according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which has selected USF for the foundation's new Community Engagement Classification. USF is the only Florida university to receive the classification.
The USF Patel Center for Global Solutions recently hired a new Executive Director, former USF president Betty Castor, and has set research goals that are expected to have a worldwide impact. See also the St. Pete Times article on Castor taking the lead at the Patel Center.
Through the Student Services Centers and Institutes, our college provides hands on educational assistance to advance the scholastic ability of our students. Most of the Centers and Institutes have active and current web sites. To find out more about CAS Centers and Institutes, visit Arts & Science Research Centers & Institutes
Counting Post DocsThe University of South Florida is participating in the NSF/NIH Annual Survey of Graduate Students in the STEM disciplines. Dan Gardner from the Office of Planning and Analysis in the Provost’s Office is coordinating this effort and will complete the survey for the University. The number of postdoctoral appointees reported to NSF is a key performance measure directly related to USF's national rankings/classification by the Carnegie Foundation, the Top American Research Universities, and the American Association of Universities. The deadline to submit is January 19, 2007. As you can see on line 16 of the USF Strategic Imperatives, Post Doctorate Appointments are an important benchmark for our success. In support of this goal, the Graduate School will be providing up to $3,000 per year towards health care insurance for post-docs. The funds for this have been provided by the Provost for the academic campus only. According to Delcie Durham, “USF Health is also considering a similar program”. As you collect the post doc information, please send a courtesy copy to the Graduate School so that they can start the process of contacting the post-docs to establish a payment method.
Spencer E. Cahill
(1949-2006)
Spencer Cahill, Professor of Sociology at USF, died in his home in Tampa on October 6, 2006, at the age of 56. He is survived by Professor Donileen Loseke, his wife of 27 years. Spencer leaves an enormous and enduring legacy in the field of sociology.
Academics are prone to measure accomplishments on this thing we call a “vita” and Spencer’s is long, indeed. In quantitative measures, we could talk about the number of books he wrote and edited, the number of journal articles published, the number of Presidencies of national associations held, and the number of editorships. In qualitative terms we could talk about the prestige of journals publishing his work, the prestige of committee assignments. Spencer knew he was well-respected, and the higher his reputation, the harder he worked to sustain it and to show it was well-deserved. Spencer always wanted to be an old-fashioned “teacher/scholar.” He believed that excellent scholarship required constant interaction with disbelieving students, that scholarship couldn’t be excellent unless it could be translated to the problems and concerns of real people in real time. He believed that students deserved scholars as teachers. By any measure he was an exemplary teacher/scholar and that is testimony to the rightness of his vision.
Every year, the Sociology Department has M.A. students who are the best of the best. Every year we have students who are accepted into two, three, or even four Ph.D. programs who find their actual choices can be very limited by their lack of money. Spencer always was bothered by this reality that students often needed to take on more debt to move to the next stage of their careers. At his request, the Department of Sociology has established a graduate student scholarship fund in Spencer Cahill’s name. The fund was created to assist our M.A. graduates in their pursuit of a Doctoral degree. We welcome anyone to contribute to this fund honoring Spencer’s memory. Contributions should be made out to the USF Foundation/ Spencer Cahill Graduate Student Scholarship Fund and mailed to the University of South Florida, Department of Sociology CPR 107, Tampa, FL 33620, Attn: Patricia Green.
Maralee Mayberry, Chair
Department of Sociology
"Outstanding American By Choice" USF Provost and Senior Vice President Renu Khator was named "Outstanding American by Choice" by U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services. Khator, a native of India, is part of an elite group of foreign-born high achievers to receive the honor, including Dr. Kiran Patel, USF Trustee and philanthropist.
The Outstanding American by Choice initiative recognizes the outstanding achievements of naturalized U.S. citizens. Through civic participation, professional achievement, and responsible citizenship, recipients of this honor have demonstrated their commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans.
Throughout the year, USCIS Director Emilio T. González will recognize naturalized citizens who have made significant contributions to both their community and their adopted country. USICS Director Emilio Gonzalez, a Cuban-born USF graduate, 
presided at the event. For the full article, go to USF News.
