The Engaged Learning Starter Award provides first-year or first-year transfer students up to $500 for expenses related to research project. First-generation and/or historically underrepresented undergraduate students at SMU are eligible for this award. While based on the capstone Engaged Learning Fellowship, the ELSA is designed to introduce students to research through a smaller-scale, exploratory project.
1. Recommended, not required: Find a faculty mentor to sponsor this research. At minimum, they will give you feedback on your initial proposal and your final product. Ideally, they will be available for some consultation and feedback along the way.
2. Create a proposal for your project. We have a template that you can use. Clearly describe the Who-What-When-Where-How.
In the proposal, you may request up to $500 for expenses related to the research. Some examples of expenses:
3. Email your proposal to engagedlearning@smu.edu by 11:59pm on April 15th.
It will take 2-3 weeks to review your proposal, so please be patient! We will only be reviewing applications after the April 15th deadline.
For any projects involving human subjects (e.g. surveys, psychology experiments, etc.), you may need to register and complete some training with Research Compliance. If accepted, we will send your proposal to their office on your behalf.
If you receive the Engaged Learning Starter Award, you will be expected to: