Good-to-Great Grants Program

Provide a vision of greatness in your field, then summarize the approach you will use and how the proposed investment will enable your unit to excel. In particular, describe the internal and external partnerships you will form and how you will draw upon existing departmental or university assets in developing your vision. While perhaps not the main focus of the investment, take a full look at your unit and describe impact in teaching and learning, talent and culture (Shared Values), and service.

Provide a description of the unit(s) and its major areas of research and scholarship. Include the number of assistant, associate and full professors, the number of graduate students and (where applicable) undergraduate majors, a brief overview of the unit’s teaching and graduate training and any other information salient to evaluation of the proposal. 

Provide a candid assessment of the current reputation and status of the proposing unit. To the extent possible, describe the criteria used in your field, your interpretation, and any nuances that should be understood. Identify areas of particular strength and areas where improvement can substantially enhance the unit’s achievement and reputation.

State the year of the unit’s most recent external review and highlight relevant conclusions from review.

While your proposal should focus on the distinctive excellence that is possible at Ohio State, it is helpful to learn from one’s peers. List five academic units at other universities that are aspirational targets for the proposing Ohio State department. Explain aspects of these departments that are currently stronger than the proposing Ohio State department and how the proposed investment will help to achieve parity.

For a joint proposal from multiple units, this section may adopt separate lists for each unit, or it may refer to other universities that have comparable unit combinations.

Describe the path to excellence that the department will take. Include a description of the local, university, national or international resources and partnerships that the proposing unit will tap into, and new relationships or alliances that will help the unit flourish.

Describe the proposed areas of investment, and why this investment will enable a good-to-great transition.

Summarize the anticipated impact of the proposed investment, with a focus on how it will enable the proposing unit to achieve the goals set out in Section A, and how it will affect the reputation and stature of the department. 

Describe the path to excellence beyond the investment by addressing teaching and learning, talent and culture, and service impact.

Describe goals for each year of the project and identify metrics that will be tracked during and following the grant to assess its success in promoting a good-to-great transition.

Beyond the financial benefits, describe how the investment will catalyze other opportunities.

Describe how the investment will be used including:

• Total budget over five-year period
• Total budget by fiscal year
• Total budget by category (categories should include faculty salary and benefits, faculty startup funding, staff hiring, graduate student funding, postdoc funding, equipment, facility upgrades or other categories as appropriate)

Describe the planned investment in faculty over the five-year grant period, including both OAA support and department or college support. Include discussion of junior vs. senior hires, fields where hiring will be concentrated and strategies such as cluster hiring. Explain whether the planned hiring represents a long-term increase in the unit’s faculty size. Summarize how the unit’s faculty will differ in five years from its current makeup. NOTE: This faculty discussion should be included even if the requested OAA funds are not themselves directed to faculty hiring.

Summarize, with approximate dollar amounts, the investment that the department and sponsoring college will make to complement the OAA funds. This summary could include, for example, providing startup funds to faculty whose initial salary will be provided by OAA funds and long-term increases in faculty or staff size. Although there is no required minimum level of cost sharing for these grants, commitment of resources by the college and department is a criterion for evaluation.

The department chair or unit head should provide a letter endorsing the proposal and stating that the proposal has been endorsed by a majority vote of the unit’s tenure-track faculty.

The sponsoring college dean should provide a letter endorsing the proposal and stating a commitment from the college to assume any long-term costs beyond the proposal period, such as the salaries and benefits of additional faculty and staff or maintenance costs of equipment. If the proposal involves substantial upgrades of facilities or expansion of the department's space, these aspects of the proposal should be specifically endorsed in the dean's letter.

For joint proposals from multiple units, endorsements should be provided from all unit heads and college deans involved.