Villanova Awarded National Science Foundation Grant

Villanova University has been awarded a grant for over $140,000 to help underrepresented students earn fellowships to strengthen their chances of earning spots in graduate programs.

The grant comes form the National Science Foundation (NSF) and provides Villanova University’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships with $143,502 to hold a "Fellowship Boot Camp" later this month at the Compact for Faculty Diversity’s Institute on Teaching and Mentoring conference in Tampa, Fla.

The boot camp will cover the topics of self-presentation skills, NSF grant requirements, and the NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), which is the largest student fellowship program in the U.S.

Dr. Michael T. Westrate, the primary organizer of the project and Director of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships at Villanova University, said the boot camp ideally will be implemented at other institutions to help serve underrepresented students and that without programs such as the boot camp those students are less likely to be successful in earning fellowships.

"The primary goal of this project is to increase the fellowship application success rate for underrepresented minority students by delivering, to the largest group possible, the same professionalization training that students receive at Villanova and Notre Dame—as well as to assist professors and administrators who wish to learn best practices in such training," Villanova's website says.

Click here to learn more about Villanova's Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

Image via National Science Foundation