Enrolling 2,209 students, Franklin & Marshall (F&M) is a residential college dedicated to excellence in undergraduate liberal education. Located in Lancaster, PA, F&M is tied for #40 among national liberal arts colleges (LAC; US News and World Report, 2015), was cited among the 50 colleges and universities in Princeton Review?s new Colleges That Create Futures (2015) publication, and was tied for #1 in a new US News category of ?Most Innovative Schools? (2015), nominated by peers. Offering a hands-on education emphasizing close relationships with faculty, F&M has a wide range of academic and pre-professional programs in biomedical and biobehavioral fields, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, and public health. The College ranks #49 among all baccalaureate-origin institutions of 2002?2011 recipients of doctoral degrees in Science and Engineering (S&E) and #27 among Baccalaureate institutions (NSF, 2013). Recent strategic efforts have deepened our student talent pool and bolstered the enrollment of first-generation and underrepresented minority students: F&M was the first LAC to agree to host a STEM Posse through the Posse Foundation, has emphasized building recruitment networks with national charter school and college access organizations, and has eliminated merit aid while significantly enhancing need-based aid to lower- and middle-income students. We have benefited from these strategic decisions (e.g., more than tripling Pell-eligible students from 2008 to 2015 and more than doubling the percentage of domestic students of color since 2005) and are eager to create even more opportunities for our increasingly diverse student body to engage with faculty in collaborative research. Increased activity and expectations by incoming faculty and efforts to tap the full grant-seeking potential of mid-career faculty members have placed heightened pressure on F&M's sponsored research operations. Our innovative pre-award Office of College Grants (OCG), launched in 2012, is now insufficient to the expressed needs of faculty, resulting in the piloting of a lifecycle model of grants administration. Despite this shift, F&M still has deficiencies in a. research administration (RA) and research compliance (RC) systems and infrastructure; b. training and support of professional staff; and c. faculty development related to seeking research grants. Hired in 2o12 as the OCG was formed, Director of Faculty Grants Amy Cuhel-Schuckers will lead the transition to a lifecycle model with a primary goal to strengthen our fledgling pre- and post-award lifecycle model and thus provide strong support to our research- active biomedical and biobehavioral research (BBR) faculty.
Aims are to 1. Improve pre-award, post-award, and compliance structures and services, and strengthen staff training and professional development, and 2. Provide increased research-related mentoring, professional development, and incentives to BBR faculty. We will apply proven strategies to lead and effect change, including the use of external peer reviews and collaboration with an experienced Mentor from UPENN.
. Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a small national liberal arts college with a strong reputation for delivering undergraduate education in the biomedical, biobehavioral, physical, and social sciences and launching students into PhD programs and clinical programs in related fields?including public health. We have a storied history of incorporating student-faculty research as an integral component of our model of science education and, more recently, have established a pattern of innovation in delivering administrative support for advancing externally funded research by F&M's talented faculty. By 1) using national standards and an external peer review to enhance our knowledge of deficiencies in F&M's grant-related infrastructure and systems, 2) addressing the identified structural, communication, and training gaps, and 3) strengthening faculty grant-related competencies, this BRAD project will support our transition from a pre-award to a lifecycle model of grants administration, thereby providing more grant-funded opportunities for our increasingly diverse student body to engage in student-faculty research, increasing research-generated knowledge relevant to public health, and strengthening the pipeline in biomedical/biobehavioral research.
