College Research Awards

College Research Committee

The College Research Committee (CRC) is charged with nurturing, promoting, and supporting the research mission of the College. The committee, as part of its general charges, is responsible for several within-College award competitions for faculty research funding including: Faculty Fellows Awards, Summer Research Award, Graduate Research Assistantship Award. The Committee also selects the Distinguished College Scholars and Senior Scholars from among those nominated and also nominates worthy candidates for the University Scholar Award. The CRC committee reviews and selects doctoral award recipients for the College Dissertation Research Grant competition which is held twice during the academic year.

Distinguished Scholars

Faculty are eligible to compete for designation as a Distinguished Scholar based on their scholarly quality, significance, and productivity. The award carries a stipend and other college recognitions.

Faculty Fellows

Tenure-track faculty of all ranks who are full-time in the University and budgeted at least part-time in the College of Education are eligible to apply for the Strategic Initiative Hardie Faculty Fellows or the Traditional Faculty Fellows Program.  Applicants must submit a proposal.  An appointment to the Fellows Program offers many advantages, including: (1) resources for programmatic research; (2) an opportunity to develop new research programs; and (3) capacity to leverage external funding. 

Hardie Collaborative Research Stipend Award for Faculty

The Hardie Research Project Stipend awards will provide up to $5,000 per award per academic year to support collaborative or interdisciplinary research activities. In this context, ‘collaborative’ is defined as: (1) including undergraduate students in research activities, (2) developing a proposal for external funding which will include at least one other unit in the college or on campus and/or the involvement of an appropriate community partnership. 

This program is designed to help broaden the exposure of research being planned or conducted on the campus and in the community. The inclusion of undergraduate students is also seen as a way to nurture the practitioners and researchers that are the future of the profession. 

Summer Research Support

The Bureau of Educational Research in the College of Education will provide funds, on a competitive basis, to support faculty research efforts during the summer months.  Grants of up to $6,000 will be available. 

Dissertation Funding

Full-time doctoral candidates in the College of Education who have completed all pre-dissertation requirements are invited to apply for a Hardie Strategic Initiative Dissertation or Traditional Dissertation Award. The applicants must submit a research prospectus, an abstract, a work plan, a budget and justification, a curriculum vitae and a letter of recommendation. Recipients of the award can receive a maximum of $2,000 to support completion of their dissertations.

A special award called the Rosenshine Award will also be given, with identical October and March deadlines. Established in May 1998, with an initial personal gift from Professor Emeritus Barak Rosenshine, the Rosenshine Award Fund was created to benefit University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate students in the College of Education. The award will be used to provide support for outstanding graduate students working on individual research projects.

Graduate Research Assistantships

The Bureau of Educational Research has limited funds available, on a competitive basis, for graduate research assistant support for faculty.  Proposals for graduate hourly wages or percent time assistantships (maximum .25 FTE for one semester) are permitted.

Hardie Conference Travel Support Award for Students and Faculty

The generous support of an endowment from Charles Dunn Hardie has allowed the College of Education to offer a new Hardie Conference Travel Support Award to faculty and students. The amount of funding will vary based on number of applications received. Awards will not exceed $1,000. The award supports College of Education research activity by reimbursing travel and registration expenses for faculty and students presenting their work at major research conferences in their field.