Internal Award
Needs Institutional Endorsement
US Citizenship Not Required

This award is open only to currently enrolled recipients of Northeastern University’s Stamps Scholarship.

The URF office will review all requests carefully, and some requests may be declined. In reviewing each application, the URF office will consider the extent to which the applicant’s proposed activity would contribute to the applicant’s intellectual, personal, and professional development. The activities will also be evaluated on the basis of how well they advance the student’s goals as a Stamps Scholar and alignment with program values: scholarship, leadership, and community. Proposed activities will also be assessed on the basis of their safety and feasibility.

The award enables Stamps Scholars to pursue meaningful activities that will further enrich their undergraduate education.

The application can be accessed by clicking the red “Application” button above. An application consists of four components: an online form, a two-page proposal, a detailed line-item budget (please utilize this form), and a resume/CV.

The letter of intent should not exceed 500 words and should be professional in tone. It should be addressed to Northeastern’s Stamps Scholars Program.

The letter should include the following elements.

Abstract: For activities, please write single-sentence summary of what you want to do and why.

The elements of the application are:

The Online Application Form
This collects your biographical and demographic information and the basic information about your project, such as its title and the total amount of funding you are requesting. Because we area already collecting this information, you do not need to include a cover sheet with your narrative proposal.

The Narrative Project Proposal (2 pages)
The proposal should be both concise and intelligible to readers outside your discipline—please write for an audience of educated non-specialists. As this to support your learning we anticipate that you will need at least one, but no more than two typed, single-spaced pages to answer. There’s no need to include a cover page. The proposal should contain the following elements, labeled and in order:

Purpose and Significance

• Give a brief but specific statement of what you hope to do or explore as your enrichment activity.
• Clearly and concisely convey why this is important, both within your field and more broadly. This is about why the activity is important to others — we’ll get to why it is important to you!

Objectives and Methods

• List the objectives for the proposed activity.
• Provide a specific description of how are you going to attain the listed objectives of the activity, step-by-step?
• Consider potential challenges that might arise in undertaking the activity and how you might respond.
• Describe the resources (such as facilities, equipment, supplies, expert advice, partnerships, funding) that will be necessary to complete the project and any plans you have in place to access these resources.
• Demonstrate the need for Enrichment Funding for this activity.
• Tell us when and for how long the various stages of the project will take place. (While you will also provide a separate timetable, please be sure to explain the timing of your project narratively here.)
• What type of guidance and mentorship do you have in place for the activity?
• Human Subjects: If the project involves human subjects or personal data, there should be clear evidence of the Institutional Review Board’s approval, waiver or anticipated approval. (IRB approval must occur before project begins.)
• Vertebrate Animals: If the project involves working with non-human vertebrates, there should be clear evidence of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee’s approval, waiver or anticipated approval. (IACUC approval must occur before project begins.)

Outcomes, Evaluation, and Dissemination

• Explain the milestones, benchmarks, and criteria that you will use to assess and, if necessary, adjust your project as it progresses.
• List the expected outcomes from the proposed activity.
• Describe how you will evaluate the project’s outcomes.
• How do you plan to share your work with our Stamps community and others?

About the Learner

• Explain how this is the right activity for you at this point in your learning journey and where it will take you.
  • Describe the experiences that sparked your curiosity and familiarized you with relevant questions, methods, and techniques up to this point.
  • Describe your current level of skill and confidence in this area in both the conceptual and practical  levels.
  • Tell us how working on this project will move advance your capacities for Scholarship, Community, and Leadership. How do you expect to grow in independence, expertise, and confidence by undertaking this activity?

Timetable (1 page)
Prepare a detailed, week-by-week timetable outlining the specific steps and duration of your proposed course of action for carrying the project to completion. Include how many hours you plan to dedicate to working on the project each week. Please also note when your project begins and ends. While projects can continue beyond the award term, applicants should describe a completable portion of the project to be tackled during the award duration. (Recall that project timing should also be discussed in the project narrative.)

Annotated Bibliography of at Least Four Relevant Peer-Reviewed Articles or Books (1 page)
Include any works cited in the proposal as well as other key sources. An annotated bibliography provides a brief synopsis of each listed work, also explaining its relevance and applicability to your project and clarifying the work’s positioning within your field of inquiry or creativity.

Budget (1 page)
Students must include a detailed, itemized budget of estimated project expenses and available resources, prepared using the Award Budget. Only budgets prepared using the template will be accepted.

If an application is accepted, we will require that students share the results/outcomes of their Stamps activity with us.