Engaged Engineering Curriculum Grant

Page Contents

  • Funding Maximum

    $3,000

  • Deadline

    April 15, 2026

  • Notification of Awards

    May 15, 2026

  • Start Date

    July 1, 2026

Grant Purpose 

The purpose of Engaged Engineering Curriculum Grants is to promote the integration of engaged engineering learning into new or existing courses.  Such integration may involve students working with community partners, broadly defined. These grants will provide faculty with support and funding to explore new partnerships, develop new courses, and enhance existing courses. 

Specifically, this funding is meant to introduce, improve, or increase the four Engaged Engineering Criteria in your course. 

  1. Address real-world challenges or opportunities valued by community partners, including place-based, interest-based, non-profit, government, and industry; 
  2. Include working with and/or learning from a community partner, whether on campus or outside the university, through in-person or virtual engagement; 
  3. Connect and integrate engaged engineering experiences with educational content; and 
  4. Include structured, documented critical reflection that addresses both technical and social aspects of the engagement. 

Sustainability beyond the grant period is a high priority, so we encourage applicants to consider how these funds can support teaching courses more than one time. 

Engaged Engineering Curriculum Grants are not intended to support: 

  • Undergraduate research and student project teams. These programs will have separate processes. 
  • Co- or extra-curricular activities such as student clubs or speaker series  

Are you wondering whether your course idea is a good fit? Contact Max Zhang (kz33@cornell.edu) to talk about your course and ideas.  Opportunities to learn more about engaged learning will be made available before the submission deadline.   

Who is Eligible? 

Faculty of any rank including RTE teaching faculty in Cornell Duffield Engineering may apply. The faculty lead on a collaborative project must be a member of the department responsible for the course. Staff, graduate students, and community partners can be team members but cannot serve as team leads. Participation of community partners is strongly encouraged. Partners may be community-based nonprofits, government entities, corporations, or Cornell-based organizations that facilitate external partnerships or that can serve as clients of the project. 

There is no restriction on the geographic location of the partnership. 

Funding 

Funding for curriculum grants will not exceed $3,000. All budget lines must be justified. Applicants should make their case for the use of funds most appropriate to their needs. Please note that grantees might not receive their full budget request. 

Engaged Engineering Curriculum Grants have a 12-month term. At the end of the approved grant period, grant-holders may be eligible for a no-cost extension or will return the remaining funds.  

Expectations and Deliverables 

A final report will be due two months after the funding is completed. Required final reports will include:  

  1. The course syllabus. 
  2. A general description of the course. The general description can include discussion of student participation, student evaluations of their experiences, community partner contributions to the student learning experience, as well as the benefit to the community partner and achievement of learning goals set by the applicants.  
  3. Learning outcome assessment. Engaged Engineering learning has potential to help students develop social responsibility and civic awareness, to provide real-world context for building technical and professional skills, to improve students’ ability to understand needs, to build capacity for interdisciplinary collaboration and to promote lifelong learning.  These map well to the college / ABET learning outcomes. You can find some examples of learning outcomes, their mapping to College / ABET outcomes 1-7, and sample assessment methods at Examples of Learning Outcomes and Assessment Methods.

As appropriate, grantees may be asked to contribute photographs or stories to support communication about engaged learning in the college. Grantees will also be expected to participate in future engaged learning workshops to share their experiences with other faculty. 

Budget 

Allowable Expenses 

  • Faculty and/or staff support: 
    • Travel, meals and lodging associated with community-engaged learning conducted off campus 
    • Resources for collaborative planning (meals, mini-conferences, books, subscriptions, webinars, etc.) 
    • Materials that support the project 
    • Funding for student interns, graduate assistants and/or academic staff to assist with course development 
  • Student support: 
    • Travel, meals and lodging associated with community-engaged learning conducted off campus 
    • Systems that support the student work experience (graphics, software, enrollment in online training, etc.) 
  • Community partner support: 
    • Funds that support the participation of the off-campus community in the experience 

Unallowable expenses 

  • Overhead and indirect costs (IDC); 
  • Tuition; 
  • Capital projects; 
  • Faculty or staff salaries; 

Selection Criteria 

Cornell Duffield Engineering leadership and invited reviewers will review proposals using the following criteria, as appropriate: 

  • Contribution to Cornell’s goal of 100% undergraduate participation in high-quality community-engaged learning opportunities, which 
  • Address a specific community interest, problem or public concern (Need) 
  • Include working with and learning from a community partner (Partner) 
  • Connect and integrate community-engaged experiences with educational content (Connection) 
  • Include structured, documented critical reflection (Reflection) 
  • Prospect for sustaining the engaged engineering course beyond the life of the grant 

Given the competitive funding environment and limited resources, priority will be given to proposals that 

  • Engage undergraduates in substantial numbers; 
  • Embed community-engaged learning into core or required components of the curriculum, particularly at the 1000 or 2000 level or in large-format classes; 
  • Come from departments/programs that offer fewer opportunities for community-engaged learning; 

Instructions to Apply 

Proposals must be submitted using the online application form, and include the following information, within the space limits described on the form. 

  1. Course title 
  2. Name(s) of team member(s) and their unit(s) 
  3. Signed letter of endorsement from department chair 
  4. Community partner(s) information, if applicable. Letter of collaboration is strongly encouraged. 
  5. Succinct summary, to be shared publicly, describing the course, public purpose, and what the project team will be doing 
  6. Short narrative that describes the proposed Engaged Engineering course, including, as relevant: 
    • Specific aims of the grant in connection to the course (e.g., adding community partners to an existing course, developing a new course with a partner, integrating reflection into student learning, etc.) 
    • Need. Description of the benefit of the student coursework to the partner(s) 
    • Partner. Clearly identified community partner(s) and their role in the student learning experience 
    • Connection. Description of two to three learning outcomes for your project, mapping  to the college outcomes, and how you will assess these learning outcomes. See related description under Expectations and Deliverables 
    • Reflection. Description of how the course supports student preparation for and critical reflection on their community-engaged learning experiences 
  7. Description of how the proposed course connects to the broader curriculum within a major (e.g., what are the course prerequisites, is it a required course, is the course introductory, capstone, etc.) 
  8. Estimated number and type of Cornell students (majors; undergraduate, graduate, professional) targeted by the proposal  
  9. Discussion of whether this course requires funding that will need to be replenished to teach it in the future. What are the opportunities to sustain the course beyond the grant period? Include estimate of resources needed and plan for securing and sustaining those resources. 
  10. Budget and budget justification aligned directly with the budget categories in the online application form. Projects are encouraged to include funding to support community partner efforts.