AI-Exploration Grant

 

Overview

We are excited to introduce a pilot series of grants and mentoring to facilitate faculty exploration and experimentation with generative AI in their research and/or teaching to advance our mission of forming students of conscience, competence, and compassion for a more just and sustainable world. With the support of a generous donor contribution, faculty who are relatively unfamiliar with the applications of generative AI will be supported in developing their expertise and exploring potential uses in their research and teaching. 

Proposed projects might include: investigating the uses of LLMs for analyzing corpora of documents or other research data, incorporating genAI in the creation or modification of course materials or assignments, or even research targeted at interrogating generative AI, its outputs, and the ethical questions continuously arising alongside its deployment across all facets of modern life. 

The primary eligibility requirement of the AI Exploration Grant is that faculty who are relatively inexperienced with AI (namely, do not have an existing research agenda related to AI) intend to engage directly with one or more AI platforms or tools to deepen their own critical AI literacies. Special consideration will be given to faculty in the Arts and Humanities. 

Grant recipients will be connected to a cohort of faculty and assigned a faculty mentor to support their work over the summer. At the completion of their project, they will be expected to compose a brief report on their experience for Faculty Development, to contribute any relevant reflections or resources developed to an online repository for other SCU faculty to learn from, and to share any findings/outcomes at a community event co-sponsored with the Cunningham Shoquist Center for Applied AI.

 

Required Proposal Materials

Please prepare a detailed project description and accompanying budget and upload it to our 2026 AI-Exploration Grant Proposal Form  

You must use accessible Google Doc or PDF formats.

Title of Project

Name, Position, Department and Email

Describe your project in detail (max. 1,000 words), including:

• Goals: Identify one or more driving questions for your planned engagement with AI. What communities might be impacted or served by your inquiry?
  
  
• Project Outline: Submit a one-paragraph description of an application of AI you’d like to experiment with over summer and/or into the 2026-27 academic year.
  
  
• Professional Development: Describe in one brief paragraph your current experience level with AI and your goals in terms of increasing your own critical AI literacy.
  
  
• Budget
  • Successful faculty will receive $2,000 as supplemental pay. 
  • Optional: include a brief outline of projected operational costs.
    • The budget may include costs such as those associated with student research assistants, subscriptions or fees related to AI platforms or technologies, or other professional development costs. Please note: Additional budget requests are limited to a maximum of $1,000.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Faculty Development at facultydevelopment@scu.edu 

 

Proposal Submission and Review

Proposals not currently under review

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