About

Collaborative Mentoring Program

Request for Proposals

Date and Deadlines

Program description

Collaborative mentoring grants are offered in support of mid-career tenure-track and instructional specialized faculty (teaching, research, or clinical associate professors).

The program’s main objective is to prepare faculty members for the next promotion. Team proposals will be accepted, as well as proposals from academic units. Collaborative mentoring teams and academic units can receive up to $5,000.

Collaborative and unit proposals should consist of at least two faculty members working in a peer-to-peer interdisciplinary team. Proposals must reflect substantive involvement from team members from different disciplines and/or academic departments. Grants are given on an ongoing basis throughout the academic year (depending on fund availability).

Proposals should demonstrate research, teaching, or engagement excellence. This can be conveyed through creating research/writing plans, collaborating on internal and external funding and grants, setting up and running laboratories, developing innovative pedagogy, and cultivating relationships with potential external reviewers, and community organizations.

Proposals should enhance productivity for professional outcomes in the areas of scholarship, grant applications, publications, or community outreach. Projects may consist of developing and achieving teaching excellence through the development of new pedagogical practices, developing new courses, interdisciplinary curricula, and student outcomes. Additionally, proposals may also address work-life barriers and strategies for addressing issues that may limit professional advancement at the University of Illinois.

Team proposals may include funding for:

  • Editing services.
  • Expenses for a collaborative mentoring partner outside the institution.
  • Honoraria for external in-person mentoring or mentoring public events.
  • Professional coaching.
  • Professional development travel.

Proposals requesting funds for external in-person support should include a letter of support from the proposed mentor for the services to be provided and the associated costs.

Faculty eligibility

Each project will identify a faculty lead or principal investigator who will assume organizational leadership for the project. A faculty member may only be a lead on one submitted project. However, there is no limit to being on other projects. Applicants are strongly encouraged to include other mid-career faculty members. Preference will be given to teams who have not been previously supported.

Proposal preparation

Format: Proposals are being accepted on an ongoing basis. 

Upload a single PDF of your proposal HERE.

Questions?

 For additional information, please send inquiries to LAS-IE@illinois.edu. 

Awards

2025 Awards

Project Title #1:  Black Letters Collective Research and Mentoring Project

  • Research Team: Christopher Freeburg, Professor, English (Project Lead)
  • Irvin Hunt, Associate Professor, Department of English
  • Candice Jenkins, Professor, African American Studies

Project Title #2: CDC: Understanding Publishing Perils, Priorities, Promotional Pathways and Disciplinary Innovations

  • Lindsay Rose Russell, Associate Professor, English (Project Lead)
2024 Awards

Project Title #1: Critical Disciplinarity Collective

  • Lindsay Rose Russell, Associate Professor, English

Project Title #2: Understanding Manuscript Success: Developing A Writing and Publication Plan

  • Mahruq Khan, Teaching Associate Professor, Gender & Women's Studies (Project Lead)
2023 Awards

Project Title #1: The Dissertation Coach

  • Mahruq Khan, Teaching Associate Professor, Gender & Women's Studies (Project Lead)

Project Title #2: Cross-disciplinary Mentoring on Teaching Gender in the 21st Century in the Behavioral and Technological Sciences

  • Research Team: D.A. Briley, Associate Professor, Psychology
  • Collen Lewis, Associate Professor, Computer Science
  • Chadly Stern, Associate Professor, Psychology