MSU College of Arts and Letters
Service Design Research for Supporting Grants Involving Community-Engaged Scholarship and Creative Practice

 

Client/Project Overview

The Michigan State University College of Arts and Letters (CAL) Office of Research is a small unit (five members) in CAL that focuses on helping faculty and staff with grant-funded research projects, specifically identifying funding opportunities, applying for funding opportunities, and fulfilling grant obligations.

My role: Lead/solo researcher

The Process

Designing the Study
Faculty and staff participants were recruited via email using the separate CAL listservs for faculty and staff.

Interviews
The interview process for this project was structured, with an upper time-bound of 60 minutes. Questions for faculty and staff had slightly different wording based on participation or support for community engaged activities. Questions focused on definitions of community engagement, barriers to performing community engaged work, and grant responsibilities.

Coding
Transcripts of audio interviews were created using Kalutura MediaSpace. Transcripts were coded with codes created from a combination of inductive coding and deductive coding (prior knowledge of specific barriers).

Recommendations
Using a combination of the themes from interview coding and analysis of the CAL website and university resources, a sets of recommendations were created for changes at the University, College, and Individual Unit levels.

Deliverables

Screenshot of first CAL Office of Research Newsletter with project update as first substantive item.

I provided a slide deck and a one-hour presentation in February 2024 to the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, and the Assistant Dean for Academic and Research Technology. This deck and presentation covered the study design and methodology for the project followed by recommendations for change at the University, College, and Office of Research levels based on the a) interview data, b) best practices for digital experiences, and c) my own experience as a faculty member and researcher. This data was also presented afterwards to the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Faculty Affairs and the new Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies (changed in June 2024).

An overview of the study findings were sent to CAL faculty and staff via the first edition of the CAL Office of Research Newsletter in April 2024.

IMPACTS OF THIS WORK

Impacts of this work are ongoing within the College of Arts and Letters. Recommendations from this work that have been adopted or are in progress include:

  1. A monthly office hour for faculty and staff to connect with the Office of Research (Started Spring 2024

  2. The creation of a newsletter for the CAL community which makes funding workshops and opportunities transparent to the community (Started in Spring 2024, created and updated collaboratively with a member of the Office of Research staff)

  3. Creating funding opportunities for community-engaged scholarship and creative practice work. We launched a pilot funding program for a training opportunity and were able to offer two faculty members to attend this training (2024, 2025 before budget cuts forced elimination of this program (2026).

  4. Redesigning the CAL Office of Research website (2025, continuous development)

  5. Creation of a form-based process for Academic Specialist PI Exemption Requests (2025)

Lessons learned

Academic Change is Long Term