Nord Grants

Nord Grants support UCITE’s goal of empowering people to learn through the development of innovative faculty teaching and research projects that directly benefit student learning. Projects may be created by individual faculty members or in collaboration with others, including members of educational and cultural institutions external to CWRU.

The Nord Family Foundation is a successor to a charitable trust established in 1952 by the entrepreneur and industrialist Walter G. Nord. Mr. Nord and his family believed that it was both responsible and prudent for a business to invest in the community it served.  Two of Walter's children, Evan and Eric Nord, were early donors to UCITE, and sponsored the Nord Grant program promoting faculty innovation in teaching.

Nord Grants may of particular interest to those who wish to:

• Explore innovative teaching and learning strategies or projects
• Explore creative teaching ideas to support learning in remote and hybrid class settings
• Integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework principles into course curricula
• Innovate instructional techniques through the application of teaching and learning technology
• Develop Inter- and Trans-disciplinary collaborations to create student learning opportunities beyond the classroom environment
• Use academic data to understand and improve student learning
• Evaluate the impact of innovative teaching strategies on student learning

Funding

• Nord Grants have no fixed financial parameters. Project support is commensurate with provided justification. Priority is given to faculty who have not previously been awarded a Nord Grant.
• Awards are typically given twice yearly, with starting dates of January 30 (Winter awards) and July 30 (Summer awards).
• Winter awards are provided for 1.5 fiscal years (e.g., January 2025-May 2026)
• Summer awards are provided for 1 fiscal year (e.g., July 2025-May 2026)

Eligibility

Full-time CWRU teaching faculty are eligible to apply for a Nord Grant. Visiting faculty, part-time faculty, SAGES Fellows, and graduate students may collaborate as team members with a full-time faculty member for grant proposals (the team leader must be full-time faculty).

3-Step Application Procedure

Fellowship applications consist of three steps:
1. Conference with UCITE Director Matthew Garrett to review a drafted proposal (please email ucite@case.edu to schedule)
2. Provide your Department Chair/Dean with a Chair Evaluation Form
3. Complete online contact and summary information through the Nord Grant Application Form which will request:

• Contact information
• De-identified proposal forms
• letters of support (see details below)

Proposal conferences with the UCITE Director must be completed prior to submitting online proposals.

Summer 2025 Nord Grants have been awarded! Check back in the fall for our next cycle of awards.


Step 1: Project Development and Initial Review with UCITE Director
Submit a draft PDF copy of your completed Project Description form to UCITE (ucite@case.edu) and arrange for a review meeting to discuss the proposal. Please call the UCITE office if you prefer to schedule with us over the phone (216.368.1224). You may access the Nord Application Template using this link. A review of drafted proposals may help ensure that all areas of the project description are addressed completely. Proposal conferences must take place prior to submitting online proposals.

Step 2 (NEW FOR 2024-25): Chairperson Evaluation Form 
Send your complete proposal along with the Chairperson Evaluation Form to your primary department chair/program director/dean. If co-applicants from multiple departments are involved, only the lead applicant needs to obtain a completed chairperson evaluation form. It is the responsibility of the lead applicant to ensure that their chairperson completes this form.

The chairperson should evaluate the proposal, complete the fillable pdf form, and then forward the Chairperson Evaluation Form to ucite@case.edu. These forms must be received by the submission deadline.

Step 3: Applicants should proceed with online submission of Nord Grant application materials through this Qualtrics link by the fall due date.

 
Faculty Contact and Project Summary Information
Complete an online form that provides UCITE with necessary contact and summative information. Using this form, applicants will upload a completed project description form and Letter(s) of support:

Project Description Form
Submit your completed Project Description Form on the deadline date. The information in your project description should be concise and clear, and should address each of the prompts listed. You may access the Nord Application Template using this link.

The review committee will read applications as anonymous submissions. Please do not put your name anywhere in the text of your project description. You may include other details, such as your department and course titles. If you have questions about how to ensure anonymity, please contact our office.

While each proposal will be different, each applicant must address the following five areas, using the form:

• NEW: Project Abstract: In 250 words or less, provide an overview/abstract of your project with enough detail for a general audience (i.e., outside of your discipline) to read it. Include a purpose statement that describes how your project will improve student learning. State how Nord Grant funding will be used to achieve project goals. This overview will be made public on the UCITE website if your project is funded.
• Project Nature and Goals: How will your project produce deeper student learning through more impactful teaching? Clearly identify your project objectives (i.e., the items that you will measure to document project success). What scholarship about teaching and learning does your project engage with? What experiential or service learning opportunities may be possible through your project? What campus resources might you engage to accomplish your goals (e.g., [U]Tech, KSL)? How does your project align with the University priorities of: 1) elevating academic excellence, 2) expanding research enterprise, or 3) enhancing community engagement and impact? If your proposal aligns more closely with departmental learning outcomes, provide specific details about those outcomes and how your project will help accomplish those goals.
• Professional Impact: What is the relationship between your project and your teaching and research responsibilities at CWRU? Will your project have short-term or long-term impact on teaching and learning? How do you plan to maximize the number of students that may benefit from involvement in this project?
• Evidence of Student Learning: What evidence will you seek to collect and analyze to determine how well or to what extent project goals were achieved? Clearly reiterate your project objectives and provide specific assessments you plan to use for each objective to document project success. How will you measure evidence of student learning? Be sure to incorporate measurement tools beyond student perception surveys.
• Budget and Timeline: How will Nord Grant funds be used to support the project – for materials/equipment, for student stipends, or for something else? What support, if any, will the project receive from other sources, including on-campus (e.g. department funds) or beyond-campus (e.g. discipline-specific awards) funds? Given that funds are available for approximately one fiscal year, what is the proposed timeline for the project? Is this a new project or is the work already underway? List expenses in priority order from most important to least important.
  NOTE: If Nord funding will be used for faculty salary, obtain confirmation from your Dean's office as to the salary amount, including fringe. You may forward confirmation to ucite@case.edu.

Additional Letter(s) of Support (optional)
Documentation of support is requested, as appropriate, from university resources. These types of email correspondence or more formal letters are necessary to acknowledge collaborative support of your proposal from other units within the university. For example, if you are planning a new interdisciplinary project, you will need to include communication from the other department(s) involved, demonstrating support for your proposal.

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS

Proposals (including budget) will be publicly accessible. Accepting an award means the proposer agrees, unless explicitly requested otherwise.

 

Budget
Budgets must conform with the rules of the proposer's department and school, as well as those of the university. Grant applicants must check with appropriate entities to be sure their items meet such criteria before submitting the budget. UCITE approves a proposal on the basis of its appropriateness. UCITE approval does not imply conformance to university rules (such as the need to obtain IRB approval); the proposal author is responsible for checking and complying with such rules. The budget should list the titles and amounts of any prior Nord Grants received by the requester. Support for the budget, including the total funding amount, should be included in the letter from the department chair (or other appropriate supervisory authority in schools where there is not a department structure).

FYI: Public Disclosure 

• Proposals (including budget) will be publicly accessible. Accepting an award means the proposer agrees, unless explicitly requested otherwise.
• Nord Grant recipients will collaborate with UCITE in publicizing their project to the CWRU community through our website and other appropriate venues.

Reporting 

• Within two months after the award period ends, the grant recipient must file a report with UCITE (approximately 300 words) that contains project accomplishments, including impact on student learning. The report will be published in UCITE’s annual report.
• Recipients must also file a brief summary of budget expenditures, to be kept on file.

Presentation  

At the end of each academic year, Nord Grant recipients will give a short public presentation at the UCITE Teaching Forward: An InspirED Celebration event.
 

Publicity and Acknowledgements

• Any resulting publications and presentations should acknowledge the support of UCITE. For example, “The author of this publication received financial support from a CWRU UCITE Nord Grant for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.”
  • Please submit electronic copies of any publications.
• Nord Grant recipients may be invited to record brief comments about their project for the UCITE website or other university publicity purposes.

Nord Grants Awarded

The following faculty were awarded grants to fund the listed proposals.