For graduate students experiencing a slow spell, it may be time to take a break and look into one of those side projects one may have always been interested in, but never had time to pursue.

Professional Advancement Grants (PAGs) are available for Iowa State graduate students from the Graduate College and the Graduate Student Senate (GSS). According to the Graduate Student Senate homepage, “PAG research grants are provided to encourage graduate students to pursue research beyond their requirements.”

Travel grants are provided to allow graduate students to attend professional meetings. They may also be used to attend “hands-on” workshops which are not available through Iowa State. The travel grants vary from $75 to $100 dollars and depends if the graduate student is going to present their research at a meeting.

For research grants, students need to submit a proposal of the research they wish to pursue. Proposals may be collaborative or individual. Grant proposals are reviewed by the Graduate College and are then considered by the GSS PAG Committee. After review, the GSS will offer each eligible graduate student $300 per fiscal year.

A stipulation of the grants is that they cannot be used toward completion of a thesis, dissertation or creative component, nor can they be used for purchasing books, materials or course work required for completion of a graduate degree.

“In the past, they have always been dominated by the sciences,” Nicholas Lewin, chair of the PAG Committee of the GSS said. “But we are looking for anything from any subject that people are studying. Anyone who is a graduate student in any department can apply. Basically, it has to be a grant with work appropriate to the field it is being applied in,” he said.

Lewin said he has almost never seen any applications from non-science disciplines.

“We would like to see some work from people in other fields,” he said. “In the last year we had a couple of grants from people in textiles and they were doing anthropological folklore type stuff.”

There is a limited amount of PAG funding available. The level is determined by the GSS each year.

“At the current time we have $6,000 budgeted,” Lewin said. “We give a total of 20 grants of $300 each.”

For the 1996/1997 school year, the graduate college has contributed an extra $3,000 of research money for PAGs.

“That’s a result of money from the Iowa State University foundation that was donated to support graduate research,” John Dobson, associate dean of the graduate college and faculty advisor to the graduate student senate said.

The graduate college has decided to have this money be available through the graduate student senate. It will be divided into four grants of $750 each.

The proposal and review process will be the same as for the $300 grants. All funds will be awarded on a competitive basis and the PAG committee will decide which proposals will be funded for $300 or $750, based on the merit of the proposal and the amount requested.

“I’m looking forward to reviewing the grants and I hope there will be a lot of interest this year,” Lewin said.

The deadline for submission of proposals is October 30, for funding for fall semester and February 15, for funding for spring semester. Grants that are not funded may be resubmitted before the next funding deadline.

“Sometimes we have some carry over,” Lewin said. “If we don’t get 12 proposals this semester we will carry over the extra and we will have that much more to give in the spring.”