Summer Research Grants 2010-2011

Award & Eligibility

The UNM School of Law offers two types of merit-based summer grants, for teaching projects (summer teaching grants) and for scholarship production (summer research grants). Recipients of research grants should expect to make a presentation to the faculty about their research. Tenured, tenure-track and legal writing faculty will be eligible to apply for a summer research grant, unless they are on a 12-month, administrative contract or have taken emeritus status. Grant decisions will be made by the Dean prior to the end of the spring semester.

Criteria & Objectives

Eligible faculty members must apply by the deadline provided by the dean.

Summer Research Grants

The purpose of summer research grants is to encourage faculty members to produce scholarship and to reward those who complete summer research projects and produce publications based on them. We recognize the challenges of making progress on scholarship during the course of the academic year, when faculty members are engaged in the important work of teaching and service to the law school, the university and the public. While faculty may choose to engage in other, non-research activities during the summer, these grants are an incentive for faculty to dedicate a substantial portion of the summer towards scholarly work. We recognize the importance of ongoing scholarly productivity to individual faculty members, to the law faculty as a whole, to UNM's mission, and to our students, alumni, the bar and the public at large.

Research grants will be awarded in various amounts depending on the time anticipated to be spent on the project, past scholarly activity, and teaching and service. Applicants should plan to spend a significant portion of time working on their proposed scholarship. For example, if the applicant plans to teach or engage in other activities during the summer (for UNM or for another entity), she/he should only seek a summer grant if she/he can realistically combine scholarly work with their other commitments. For example, if an applicant submits a meritorious proposal but has made another commitment for one or two months of the three months of summer, the award would be reduced by one- or two-thirds respectively.

Aside from time as discussed above, grants will be awarded on the basis of the following criteria: the merit of the proposed research project; (2) the applicant's past productivity (what did she/he accomplish based on prior summer grant awards?); and (3) the applicant's recent service to the law school in teaching or committee work. The administration will also encourage junior scholars to spend their summers conducting academic research and may well incentivize that work.

As to the third criteria above, the administration recognizes that such work other than scholarly work is also valuable to the institution and yet may undermine the ability of the scholar to work during the year. Faculty working hard to serve the institution should not be punished for agreeing to serve the School of Law's needs. Thus, those who have performed extraordinary teaching or service will be provided resources to give them more time to work on scholarship that was not available during the school year.

Summer Teaching Grants

The purpose of summer teaching grants is to encourage the development of new courses and/or innovative teaching materials and methods by law faculty, including by faculty members proposing to work together in such developments in teams or small groups. We recognize the importance of ongoing teaching innovation to individual faculty members, to the law faculty as a whole, to the University's mission, and to our students, alumni, the bar and the public at large.

While teaching grants will be awarded in lesser amounts than for academic research, such grants can be important. Applicants should plan to spend a significant portion of time working on their proposed project. For example, if the applicant plans to teach or engage in other activities during the summer (for UNM or for another entity), she/he should only seek a summer grant if she/he can realistically combine work on the proposal with their other commitments. For example, if an applicant submits a meritorious proposal but has made another commitment for one- or two-months of the three-month summer, the award would be reduced by one- or two-thirds respectively.

Aside from time as discussed above, summer teaching grants will be awarded on the basis of the following criteria: (1) the merit of the proposed teaching project; (2) the applicant's past productivity (what did she/he accomplish based on prior summer grant awards?); and (3) the applicant's recent service to the law school in teaching or committee work.

Note: In this case, the definition of faculty scholarship is diverse, including law review and peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, books and casebooks (authored, co-authored, edited and co-edited), and written materials oriented to law reform efforts and other on-the-ground legal initiatives (judicial education, CLEs, practitioner guides, and so on). However, scholarship will be differentiated from teaching, such as developing new courses, revising existing courses or course materials, and the like.