Explore Your Opportunities: Grants at S-CAR
Paraphrasing a concept described in his lecture titled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Randy Pausch, who was a Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said that we can sometimes achieve our dreams by “enabling the dreams of others.” Though admittedly a bit utopian, this is the view I have decided to take of grant funding. It is a means to an end that, when applied correctly, has the potential to allow not just the grant recipient, the Principle Investigator (PI), to realize her or his dreams, but also to allow those who are touched by the PI’s work to break cycles of violence, successfully restructure violent organizations, reach out to international and global support networks, increase their access to information, and many, many other outcomes that provide them with the ability to realize their full potential as human beings.
In the space between building a project to “enable the dreams of others” and the successful completion of grant-funded project resides a function of the administrative staff at S-CAR: Grants and Development Manager. My purview, in this new and exciting role, is to provide the support and resources needed for grant applicants to increase their "edge" in the highly competitive world of grant writing. Through shared learning with the S-CAR community, we will continue to build on best practices thereby streamlining grant processes and dramatically increasing quality, diversity, and number of grants received, as well as award amounts.
In the past year, S-CAR has seen a shift in thinking that has allowed us to take serious steps toward the goals mentioned above. In fact, it is because of the hard work of our highly productive PIs, and the growth we have seen in external funding, that I have this fantastic position!
One of our current grants was awarded by the Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Exchanges to Associate Dean of Administration Julie Shedd, Director of Graduate Certificates and Professor Mara Schoeny, and Nike Carstarphen from Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT) and S-CAR alumna, to fund the Benjamin Franklin Summer Institute Summer with South and Central Asia. This program allowed S-CAR to bring 43 high school students from countries across Central Asia such as Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, to name a few, to the United States to learn about American culture and the S-CAR approach to conflict.
Please join me in congratulating Julie Shedd, along with our current PIs, Dean Andrea Bartoli and Professors Leslie Dywer, Marc Gopin, Susan Hirsch, Howon Jeong, Terrence Lyons, Karina Korostelina, Jamie Price, Susan Allen Nan, Agnieszka Paczynska and Mara Schoeny as well as their Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs). Their unwavering commitment and contribution to the field of conflict resolution enables S-CAR to effect meaningful and positive change on a global scale.
Please feel free to contact our office for further details and a more comprehensive list of current S-CAR endeavors. For S-CAR faculty interested in writing a grant proposal, or for our friends and affiliates who wish to collaborate with one of our magnificent PIs on a current or new endeavor, please reach out to me and I will be happy to support you through the process.