Skills Development Grant
The SKILLS DEVELOPMENT GRANT covers or helps defray the cost of participating in a professional development training opportunity for current NEAIR members, or an institutional practitioner in an IR/Assessment/Effectiveness office with a NEAIR member. This grant was recently established in recognition that many institutions slashed professional development funds due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Core to our mission, NEAIR seeks to encourage and support the continuing professional development of its members.
The emphasis of this grant is to support the lifelong learning and development of institutional practitioners by providing opportunities to refresh and/or enhance:
- technical/analytical skills; or
- leadership/management skills; or
- soft skills.
The call for applications will open Thursday, April 25 with rolling monthly deadlines. Please submit your application at least two months before funds are needed. The committee will review applications after the last day of each month. Last day to submit application is Saturday, November 30.
If you are a NEAIR member, please sign into the NEAIR website using your username and password to submit your application. Your information will be pre-populated in the application below for you to then upload grant application materials. If you are not a NEAIR member, simply click on the application button at the top of the page. Complete the information on the application form and/or upload the information in a document. Recipients will be notified within 1-2 months of application about the outcome of their application.
What documents do I need to submit?
The completed proposal must include a statement by the applicant describing the following:
- Benefit to the applicant,
- Preparedness for the applicant to benefit,
- How the skill development will advance the applicant's ability to perform the "Duties and Functions" of an IR professional (see https://www.airweb.org/ir-data-professional-overview/duties-and-functions-of-institutional-research),
- Entity offering the training,
- Cost of the training.
Please include a statement of financial need, if applicable. Need will be considered for applications that are otherwise equal.
What is considered when selecting the recipient(s) for the grant?
- Eligibility - Applicants need to meet one of the following criteria:
- Be a current member of NEAIR, or
- Work in an IR/Assessment/Effectiveness office where someone is a current member of NEAIR, or work in an office explicitly supporting the functions of the IR office where someone in the IR office is a current member of NEAIR.
Once eligibility is confirmed, proposals are blinded for review.
- Criteria for selection: Proposals are evaluated by the Grants Committee using the Skills Development Grant Scoring Rubric. Basically, the Committee is looking for a clear and compelling rationale for how the professional development will benefit the applicant personally and professionally (and allow them to better perform their duties as an IR professional) and a description of their preparedness to benefit from the opportunity.
The individual evaluations then are shared with the full committee and discussed by the group. Selection is made by a simple majority vote of the Grants Committee.
Grant Award Process
A receipt showing registration to the professional development opportunity must be provided at the latest within one week after the workshop. The recipient will be reimbursed directly.The grant recipient is required to provide a report to the Grants Committee Chair via e-mail that will be shared with the Steering Committee at its next meeting after the training opportunity. The report should be no longer than half of a page and should highlight the recipient’s learning gained from attendance. That report also will be used to inform the Grants Committee report at NEAIR’s annual meeting.
Past Skills Development Grant Recipients
| Year of Award | Recipient | Amount Awarded | Workshop/Training Attended |
| 2021 | Lynn Williams College of Southern Maryland | $200 | Student Success Prediction at your fingertips: Developing Online Dashboards with Microsoft Power BI / Exploring the Power of Predictive Analytics: A Step by Step Introduction to Building a Student at Risk Prediction Model |