Cottrell Scholar Awards

Complete Guidelines

• Cottrell Scholar Awards
• Welcome
• Prospective Applicants
• Intro Guidelines
• Complete Guidelines
• Examples of Successful Teaching Proposals
• Eligibility Quiz
• Current Awardees
• Profiles of 2009 Awardees
• Lane Baker
• Penny Beuning
• Michael David Gladders
• Duncan Lorimer
• Robert McDermott
• Maura McLaughlin
• Scott Alan Snyder
• Snezana Stanimirovic
• Rory Waterman
• Yadong Yin
• General Information
• Past Awardees
• Program Statistics
• FAQs
• News

Major Awards to Encourage Research and Teaching by Beginning Faculty Members

Introduction

The Cottrell Scholar Awards, instituted in 1994, are named in honor of Frederick Gardner Cottrell, scientist, inventor, and philanthropist. Dr. Cottrell founded Research Corporation for Science Advancement in 1912 and provided means for scientific research and experimentation at scholarly institutions. He not only contributed fundamentally and practically to scientific knowledge, but he dedicated his career to enlisting science in the service of society (see Biography of Frederick Gardner Cottrell).

Objectives

The Cottrell Scholar Awards are designed for institutions and faculty members who are committed to excel at both teaching and research. These awards enable recipients to implement their plans to become outstanding scientists and educators as well as tomorrow's academic and scientific leaders. The awards also seek to reinforce faculty mentoring, communication, and a heightened appreciation for instruction in university science departments.

The Cottrell Scholars program owes its origins to RCSA's concern with the separation of teaching and research in universities. Rather than being communities of scholar-educators, universities are perceived as collections of specialists. We seek to reinforce the growing awareness that these two functions are complementary rather than wholly or partially exclusive. A key objective of the program is to build a community of outstanding scholar-educators who are dedicated to becoming leaders in both research and teaching. As such, participation in the annual Cottrell Scholar Conference, which seeks to promote community amongst Cottrell Scholars, is an important part of the program.

Eligibility

Awards are made to U.S. universities to further the teaching and research of faculty members in a Bachelor's and Ph.D. degree-granting department of astronomy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, or physics, but not in a school of medicine or engineering. Applicants must be in the third full calendar year after their first tenure-track appointment (i.e., faculty members who assumed their first tenure-track position anytime in calendar year 2007 may apply only in 2010, observing the April deadline). Applications consist of both research and education proposals and will only be accepted on the current foundation form. Applications must conform to guidelines and directions, and need to be endorsed by the institution. Potential applicants can begin the online submission process by completing the online submission Eligibility Quiz. If eligible, you will be able to download the application materials.

Budgets

All Cottrell Scholar Awards are in the amount of $75,000. Budgets are not required; hence, there is no budget page in the proposal. Cottrell Scholar Award funds can be used at the discretion of the awardee for most direct costs, with limitations only on the range of acceptable expenditures. $5,000 is set aside from the award for transportation to, and onsite expenses at, the annual Cottrell Scholars Conferences. There is no provision for indirect costs or overhead, faculty salaries, tuition, or for routine institutional services.  Funds from an award may be used to support both the educational and research projects of the Cottrell Scholar. In addition, Scholars attend the Cottrell Scholar Conference, which is focused on their educational activities, held annually in Tucson.

Applications

Eligible faculty can begin the application process by completing an Eligibility Quiz. If eligible, applicants will gain access to a page containing the Cottrell Scholar Award application packet and instructions for electronic submission. The deadline for proposal submission is the close of business (5 p.m. MST) on the first regular business day in April. Earlier submission is encouraged. In preparing the proposal, Ariel font size 11 or larger is required. Applications not conforming to the font and font size requirement may be denied without review.

Applicants should provide a list of at least two potential "inside" reviewers, preferably former mentors. Applicants also should provide a list of at least eight potential "outside" reviewers, individuals with whom the applicant has had no substantive contact, who are expert in the area of research or who could comment as experts on the education plan, or preferably both. The best outside reviewers are frequently corresponding authors in the cited references not known to the applicant. See Frequently Asked Questions for further details.

The Proposals

There are two elements to the application, the Research Proposal and the Educational Proposal. To be successful, applicants must demonstrate a strong commitment to undergraduate education and high prospects for becoming a national leader in their field of research.

The successful research proposal will identify a problem of high scientific significance and offer an original, creative, and feasible approach to its solution. The research proposal may or may not offer a new scientific thrust for the applicant. Often the research proposal addresses an area of work that is already being pursued by the applicant and for which external support and published results have been obtained. Consequently, existing support does not hinder an application. Winning proposals must convince reviewers that the applicant is pursing an important, independent program of research that is already having, or is likely to have, high impact in their area. The proposal should offer a clear plan for how progress will be achieved under its significance.

The educational proposal should identify a problem in undergraduate science education and offer a feasible strategy to address it. Criteria for evaluating the educational plan include the originality of the proposal, the suitability and sustainability for the institutional setting, and an assessment of the probability for successful implementation. Prior accomplishments, especially as they relate to undergraduates in both instructional and research laboratory settings, enhance the case for the applicant's commitment to education. The strongest proposals will include appropriate references to the rich science education literature thereby demonstrating the applicant's familiarity with what has already been accomplished and laying the foundation for the proposed education program. The components of a successful educational proposal will vary widely. Employing new techniques such as web-based instruction and cooperative learning can enhance a proposal, but should be connected to clearly stated educational goals and objectives. Outreach to students, teachers and the community should be coupled to the educational goals and strategy of the institution. Projects that deal solely with graduate education are discouraged. Examples of successful educational proposals.

Evaluation

The potential of the applicant to mount an outstanding program in both research and education and commitment to pursuing a career as a scholar-educator will be of paramount importance. Proposals are first scrutinized internally to assess the quality of the educational plan. Typically less than half of the proposals are passed forward to the next review stage. Applications that pass the first screening go on to peer review of both research and educational proposals. The foundation's Awards Program Advisory Committee makes the final recommendations. Decisions will be announced in mid-November following submission of an application on April 1, with funding to follow soon after.

Assessment of Awards

Research Corporation for Science Advancement measures the success of Cottrell Scholar awards by peer-reviewed research publications acknowledging the award and the impact of these publications; substantial involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in the Cottrell Scholar's research program; further applications for competitive external funding and grants received that were underpinned by the award; successful implementation, assessment, and dissemination of the educational project and its impact on the Cottrell Scholar's academic department. The most successful awards are productive in all these categories and help establish the career of an outstanding scholar-educator that extends well beyond the period of the award.

Cottrell Scholars Conference

As a condition of acceptance of a Cottrell Scholar Award, awardees attend Cottrell Scholar Conferences held annually in early July. $5,000 is set aside from the award for transportation to, and onsite expenses at, the annual conferences. There they meet with other current and past Cottrell Scholars to discuss their educational initiatives and issues related to becoming academic leaders in research and teaching. Past keynote speakers have included Nobel Laureates and other prominent scholar-educators. About 30 Scholars attend each meeting, with priority given to the new class of awardees. However, many Cottrell Scholars from previous years back to the inception of the program in 1994 choose to attend.