Call for Proposals 2019
The MOUNTAINTOP SUMMER EXPERIENCE:
from Inquiry to Impact
Faculty members are invited to submit proposals for the 2019 Mountaintop Summer Experience (MTSE). Mountaintop projects are interdisciplinary deep dives where faculty, students, and external partners come together and take new intellectual, creative, and/or artistic pathways that lead to transformative new innovations, new expressions, and new questions. We expect students to take radical ownership in their projects, and envision faculty mentors as partners and co-creators striving to propel their projects forward on the journey towards tangible, sustainable impact: impact which builds the skillsets, mindsets, and portfolios of pioneers and change-makers in a rapidly changing world; impact which stands on the shoulders of giants and contributes to the world’s cumulative knowledge base; impact which advances praxis and delivers solutions to the most compelling challenges facing the world today. We invite faculty to define impact in their own way, in a multiplicity of ways, and inspire us to join their dreams.
Mountaintop projects offer a distinctive integrated pathway to learning, research, and engagement. Students are often amazed at what they are able to accomplish, and how their inquiries and intellectual journeys strengthen their agency and self-efficacy and inspire new personal and professional identities. For faculty, these projects offer opportunities to work with the highest caliber of self-motivated students at Lehigh and other partner universities. Faculty can leverage the MTSE to pursue inquiries that emerge from their own research, as long as students have substantive intellectual and creative freedom and contribution to the project.
The 2019 Mountaintop Summer Experience will run from Wednesday, May 29th to Wednesday, August 7th. Students who are accepted onto Mountaintop teams will earn a stipend of $410 per week (total of $4,100 for the summer) for undergraduates and $560 per week (total of $5,600) for graduate students. Lunch will again be provided to MTSE participants in Building C this summer (Monday-Friday), to facilitate continued work during the daytime hours as well as strengthen the MTSE community. Teams can request funds for project expenses, in amounts up to but not exceeding $1,500 per student. Faculty mentors will be given an “innovation dissemination fund” of $750 per student, and additional funds are available to advance the project into the Fall semester and beyond. Additional sources of funding include The Langer Grant for International Creative Inquiry Projects, to cover student expenses related to international project-related travel.
Two-page proposals are due by 11:59pm EST on February 15th, 2019. Decisions on project funding and numbers of funded students will be announced by the end of February. Each proposal will be reviewed by 4-7 evaluators, who will provide feedback on five equally weighted criteria: Creative Inquiry; Convergence; Continuity; Community; and Commitment to Impact. Evaluators will provide open-ended comments on the proposal’s viability and feasibility. External evaluators, whether they are subject matter experts or actors in the relevant ecosystem (e.g. Bethlehem city officials), may be consulted when appropriate. Based on evaluations, proposals may be returned for further revision and resubmission. Final selections will be made by the Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry, in consultation with the Provost.
We seek citizens in our community of doers, thinkers, and creators who encourage, critique, and challenge one another on the path to excellence…and impact. In the history of the world, how will your Mountaintop project in the Summer of 2019 be regarded as the moment that changed it all? Let’s dream a little!
2019 Evaluation Form
Practical Insights on crafting successful proposals (based on the 2018 review cycle)
Fall 2018 Inquiry to Impact projects
Summer 2018 Mountaintop projects
Proposal Format and Submission Process
Proposals for 2019 Mountaintop projects must be submitted by the faculty member who will serve as lead mentor for the project. Staff members may submit proposals with approval from their department or stem leadership. Submit proposals in a PDF document, attached to an email sent to mountaintop@lehigh.edu, with the subject line “Mountaintop Summer 2019 Proposal: <Project Title>.”
Deadline for proposal submission has been EXTENDED to 11:59pm EST on Friday, February 15th, 2019.
Proposals should be 2 pages (at single-spaced 12-point font) and should include the following:
DEMOGRAPHICS
Project title (will be used in program communications and marketing materials)
Name of lead faculty mentor (also the primary faculty contact)
Names of partnering faculty/other mentors if applicable
Administrative contact for the project (for managing budget, etc.)
Names of students are already committed to the project, if any
Types of students who would be ideal for this project…majors, skillsets, competencies, interests, etc.
Ideal location for conducting your work...Building C or another on-campus location (all project teams are given a work space in Building C)
Special equipment or setup you anticipate needing for your project
DREAM and IMPACT
What is the dream?
How will you pursue this dream?
What is the topic/question/possibility/mode of inquiry you will employ?
What is the project’s potential for impact? What might your impact look like? What disciplines, fields, or spheres will your work influence?
How is this project collaborative, and what communities of practice would be involved in seeing it through, evaluating its progress, assessing its importance?
PROJECT SCOPE
What are you inspired by, what are you building on, and how are you standing on the shoulders of giants?
What is the new intellectual/creative pathway you are taking?
Why is this a game-changer?
Who cares and why? What communities of practice are you contributing to, and calibrating against?
**Faculty/staff: if you are interested in reviewing Mountaintop proposals, please contact Bill Whitney at wrw210@lehigh.edu**
Review Criteria
Below are the criteria and questions that will be given to evaluators of 2019 Mountaintop proposals. Evaluators will be asked questions that focus around the 5 C’s listed below, and asked to evaluate each of these questions on a scale of 1-5:
Creative Inquiry
- Does this proposal present compelling opportunities for Creative Inquiry?
- Does the project bring a unique topic, mode of inquiry, mode of expression, etc. into the mix?
- Does the project propose a new intellectual and/or creative pathway, or is this welltrod ground?
Convergence
- Does the proposal include particular variety in the mix of students, mix of mentors, and/or the relationship between subject areas of mentors and students?
- Does this project bring in and calibrate against external stakeholders without compromising the integrity of the inquiry?
Community
- Is this project likely to foster particularly interesting connections with other projects and strengthen the summer Mountaintop community?
Continuity
- Does the project have a clear and compelling continuation plan for the Fall/Spring semesters?
- If appropriate, are other internal or extramural funding opportunities identified or sought?
Commitment to Impact
- Is there potential for real-world impact in this proposal?
- Do you sense a real commitment on the part of the proposers to see this project through?
- Is this a good investment of institutional resources?
Finally, evaluators will be asked to provide open-ended comments, feedback, and questions forproposers. All of these answers will become factors in the decision-making process.
2019 Review Criteria Evaluation Form
Practical Insights for Proposers
With the goal of intellectual exchange and influence across teams, we do expect each team to foster connections with the others, at minimum through eagerness to be involved in exchanges with other groups and if possible by maintenance of a visible presence in the shared space, though we understand some teams may require special facilities that exist elsewhere and some naturally will occur in the community or in the field.
Insights
- Collaboration: Students, faculty, and external partners bring different resources to the table. We want them to work collaboratively on projects that advance knowledge and/or praxis. We will simply call them projects – not student projects!
- Novel Intellectual and/or Creative Pathways: Focus on projects, not experiences. We are not, in general, planning to fund “experiences” for students to go to a new location and experience something. We welcome projects which require field work in other parts of the world, but will have the same expectations for taking new intellectual and/or creative pathways.
- Potential for Impact: Define your project’s potential for impact and how it advances knowledge, praxis, or, ideally, both. If the project may not realize the impact(s) at the end of the Summer, how will your project continue, and how will your dream stay alive?
- Continuity Models: Proposals for the 2019 Mountaintop Summer Experience must demonstrate clear intention of the project’s continuity beyond the summer, or at minimum address the question of continuity. There are many different models for continuing a project’s work beyond the summer session. One such model is for a project to continue through existing courses with the project components accounting for a significant portion (40% or greater) of the student’s grade. This is the preferred and best model, and encourages creative inquiry in the classroom. Other possibilities include provisional courses like CINQ 389 (Inquiry to Impact Group Projects, 1-4 credits), in which projects can continue for multiple semesters with teams of students participating and then passing the baton on to the next team, and the next, and CINQ 387 (Creative Inquiry Independent Projects, 1-4 credits), in which 1-3 students can pursue one- or two-semester projects with a faculty mentor and be eligible for up to $300 in project funding. Finally, there are continuation models involving external (and internal) grants and awards, hiring work study students to advance the project, and co- or extra-curricular channels.
Do's
- Be Specific. The more specificity and detail you provide in your proposal, the better. While project outcomes may not always be known, reviewers want to know what the dream is, and the kind of impact it can have in the world.
- Be Ambitious. Reviewers loved projects with big dreams with potential for big impacts. Projects can arc from theory to practice, or practice to theory.
- Be Realistic. If your project needs five years and/or $10 Million to come to fruition, that’s okay. Tell us what you will realistically accomplish in the summer and how you will realistically get access to larger resources to realize the dream.
- Be Rigorous. Do your homework, and explain exactly how you are building on prior art and standing on the shoulders of giants.
- Be Compelling. Is this really a brilliant new intellectual or creative pathway worthy of Lehigh students and faculty…or is this a project where we can hire someone for $10/hour and get the job done?
- Be Committed (Have Skin in the Game). Reviewers love to see how passionate you are about the project. If you are pursuing extramural funding, that’s great. Tell us what resources you have already secured and what resources you are chasing. Successful Mountaintop 2017 teams had skin in the game through startup funds, foundation grants, open-ended industry support (industry sponsorship for specific outcomes, for example, is not a good fit), federal funds, committed students from other organizations, etc.
Don't's
- Project idea has already been well-studied; there are already existing frameworks out in the world.
- Core idea is less of a “game-changer” and more of a specific, targeted solution to a specific problem that could be addressed in an existing course.
- Unclear what continuation could (or will) be.
- Lack of specificity in project scope, plans, and/or intentions.
- Commitment of either students or mentors is clear, but not from both. Project seems more driven by a single person (whether student or faculty) than a team.
- Project is too close to a senior thesis.
- Community of practice/relevancy is not clear.
- Project lacks external calibration or partnership/broader outreach opportunities.
- Not enough potential for interdisciplinarity.
- They can just hire a student for 30 hours at $10/hour to accomplish this project.
- Project is not rigorous enough, not a good use of institutional resources