Career development of a particle physicist

Jan 27, 2016 career grant undergraduate phys-332

I became a member of the Council for Undergraduate Research & Creative Scholarship, CURCS, at USD last fall. An important responsibility of CURCS is to provide mini-grants to encourage undergraduate students to conduct research or creative activities. We had the first CURCS monthly meeting of the spring semester this morning. It was reported that the number of applications to the mini-grants was dropped recently for various reasons. Sarah Wittmuss, the director of the Center for Academic & Global Engagement made a motion to return to rolling applications, meaning that, we will process applications immediately after they are turned in and there is no deadline till the end of this semester. This will significantly shorten the interval between the turning-in of an application and the issuing of the grant and will enlarge the time window within which the submission of application is allowed. The motion was supported by all the members and will be carried on immediately. I encouraged all my undergraduate students to take this chance. No matter what would be the result, they will gain experience on funding application which is not so common among undergraduates.