Got a phone call this morning from a program director at the NSF, letting me know that a grant proposal that I submitted in November has a very good chance of being funded.
Wow.
That's the first grant proposal I've ever written. We (a colleague and I) wrote it fully expecting to get turned down. Neither one of us has a "track record" of funded research; heck, neither one of us has a track record of publications in our current field. We figured we'd get comments back, and that would be a learning experience that would help us work towards a funded project.
The grant's not funded yet...but it now seems likely it will be. And it's hard for me to describe just how wonderful I feel about this. Because I'm at a teaching institution, I've let scholarship fall by the wayside over the past six years. I haven't been publishing, and I haven't been doing research. This was the first time that I gathered myself up and actually wrote something to share with the outside world. And to have it warmly received by people I respect and admire...well, that's worth more than I can say.
No, this is not the microcontent/blogging grant proposal. That wasn't submitted until last month, so it will be quite some time before we hear anything on that. The funny thing is that everyone I've told today about the call from NSF immediately assumed it was "the blog grant."
"No, not that grant," I've had to tell them all. But a grant, nonetheless. So tonight I'm celebrating. In the words of Sally Field, "They like me! They really like me!"
That's really exciting, Liz, congrats! So WHICH grant is it?:)
Congratulations, Prof. L., excellent news! Does this, perchance buy you into some research time?
Congratulations! And yes, what's the project?
I'm being intentionally oblique about the grant, since it isn't officially funded yet. (She said I couldn't say we'd been funded--only that we were _anticipating_ funding.)
But what the heck...I've provided enough disclaimers, I think. It's the Information Technology Workforce (ITWF) program, and we're planning to look at "gendered attrition" in IT programs (as opposed to CS, where a lot of work is already being done).
Yes, Alex, _if_ it's fully funded it will buy me out for this summer and next summer, as well as giving me a one-course release each quarter so that I can do the work. Amazing. There's also money for a grad student for both years, as well as travel money so that we can extend the pilot study to other institutions in the second year.
It's a pretty competitive program--they only fund 30-40% of the proposals they receive. RIT researchers have tried twice before to get funding from it, and have not been successful. So to get a tentative nod on my first try is pretty amazing.
And it builds off of my dissertation research, which was on doctoral attrition in LIS, so it actually makes me feel like I'm starting to connect the various dots of my professional life. That's a great feeling.
That sounds like exciting and important research. It looks like we have some (more:) overlap in interests. I'm just now working on a piece looking at gender differences in Web use skill (my co-author on this paper is Steven Shafer). I posted a query related to gender and perceived skill differences on my blog recently with some helpful responses that may be of interest. I will be curious to hear how you approach the topic and where you go with it!
COngrats, Liz!
Congratulations! You and your team deserve it. All your hard work, dedication, and perseverance that you have put into the research, development, and implementation of blogs has definitely been recognized and rewarded. Congratulations, and continued success to you and your team.
Congratulations, Liz! Very cool.