Invitation to Join the Feedback Loop
In 2021, the CLASP community organized four webinars featuring winners of highly prestigious grants & fellowships (ACLS, NEH, Ford Fellowships and NSF's CAREER grant). One of the common refrains was that winners shared multiple drafts with as many people as possible – those in the same field, those in adjacent fields, even those in very different fields.
CC faculty have been informally offering this support to each other for years. Let's bring this fruitful practice out of the shadows and encourage more intentional participation.
If you join:
- You will be invited to provide feedback on a particular proposal.
- The invitation will provide context such as info on the funder, the applicant’s department, the length of the narrative, and when we would need to receive feedback (at least two weeks out).
- You can opt in or out at each request. You will not be “assigned” to read.
- You can opt to provide feedback directly to the applicant, or anonymously, whichever you prefer
- The extent of the feedback would be dependent on what you are inspired to (and have time to) share.
In order to optimize the process, when joining, you can indicate when in the 22-23 academic year would be your best blocks for participating and any other information you would like to share.
The practice of seeking feedback on several drafts of a grant narrative gives the applicant multiple opportunities to finetune their language and strengthen their argument.
I also believe planning for a document to be read by a few friendly readers may even assist in the writing stage, as this can help the applicant craft language that may be more accessible (always a grant-writing goal) while also helping them finish a first draft a little sooner (creating space for better integrating the various elements of the proposal).
I believe reading draft narratives also benefits the reader, exposing them to various funding programs and grant-writing conventions, so that lessons learned can be incorporated into their own future proposals.
Finally, this practice creates connection, something Project 2024 has uncovered as an important campus need, providing exposure to our colleagues’ scholarly and creative work.
~ Tess Powers, Director of Faculty Research Support
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