The Aggie Research Program has partnered with Research Development Services at Texas A&M to create the Proposal Development Program. The primary goal of this program is to expand research capacity by supporting professional development of emerging faculty leaders as they prepare their extramural grant proposals.
Example Proposal Development Projects
| Project Leader: | Chris Quick (preliminary) Physiology and Pharmacology cquick@tamu.edu |
| Solicitation: | https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/hsielpse-hispanic-serving-institutions-enriching-learning-programs |
| Due Date: |
February 11, 2026
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| Status: | This grant team is at an early formative stage, and Chris Quick will serve as team leader unless another faculty member wishes to take the lead. |
| Current Collaborators: |
Chris Quick |
| Potential Roles: |
PI, Co-PI, Co-Investigator, and Program Evaluator, or Steering Committee Member. |
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Special Opportunities:
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This grant team will provide experience preparing research education grants for the NSF. It is our goal to use this opportunity to advance the careers of junior faculty, and thus we intend to structure participation to ensure we protect their limited time, minimize risks of wasting their efforts, and maximize their expertise to guide the focus and approaches of the grant. The novelty and extent of the program that this grant seeks to propagate, coupled with extensive evaluation infrastructure, provides a potential to serve as a platform to supplement the research program of participants. Chris Quick will serve as team leader and presumptive PI until (or unless) another faculty member is identified. It is the intention to expand and evaluate the Aggie Service Program that is being piloted in the Office of Student Success to serve the needs of Regents Scholars for educational experiences involving high impact practices.
Those who join this team have an opportunity to participate in other grant opportunities (including those they lead themselves) that can leverage the Aggie Service Program. There are opportunities for salary support. |
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Team Needs:
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We are seeking scholars who can help us evaluate and propagate the Aggie Service Program as a model for structuring "servingness" in service learning programs |
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Description:
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Three fundamental needs are unmet. First, the dearth of leadership and service opportunities at Texas A&M limit students’ ability to experience authentic Leadership and Selfless Service. Second, faculty lack support for developing and maintaining community partnerships required for service-learning courses. Third, the needs of community partners are rarely satisfied in 14 weeks, and community partnerships suffer from the transient nature of tenuous connections hinging on particular faculty members or students. The Aggie Service Program is based on the insight that it takes a sustainable, diverse community of Texas A&M faculty and students to transform these unmet needs into opportunities.
The Aggie Service Program simultaneously incorporates four high-impact learning experiences: 1) learning communities, 2) collaborative projects, 3) diversity learning, and 4) service learning. It is based on the Aggie Research Program which matches diverse teams of undergraduates seeking research opportunities with graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty seeking leadership opportunities. Within six years, this research-focused program has proven to be scalable, sustainable, transferable, and equitable. Administered by only one faculty member with a $50K/yr budget, the spread of team-based research has created so many leadership and undergraduate research opportunities has made this program the largest undergraduate research programs in the nation. This proven infrastructure has been leveraged to create the Aggie Service Program focused on service learning. Briefly, students seeking leadership opportunities act as Aggie Service Leaders mentoring a multidisciplinary team of 3-8 undergraduate Aggie Service Scholars seeking service opportunities. New Service Scholars are recruited to replace departing team members, allowing service teams to persist indefinitely. “Faculty Directors” guide the professional development of team leaders who in turn cultivate community partnerships and civic competencies of their team. By integrating leadership, service, and education, this program promotes the creation of long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships among teams of Aggies and their community partners. Participation is open to Texas A&M students at all academic levels and disciplines and is guided by a structure implementing a pedagogical approach grounded on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Addressing needs of Texas A&M and the Texas A&M System. There is an immediate need to expand second-year programming for a very large cohort (850) of Regents Scholars. The Aggie Service Program has unique structure to meet this daunting task in a very short period because it does not rely on and extensive administrative structure to create service or leadership opportunities for hundreds of Aggies. Instead, it is a scalable, sustainable, transferable, and equitable program that serves “Aggies committed to creating service and leadership opportunities for fellow Aggies”. It has the potential to provide a pragmatic path forward for second-, third-, and fourth-year students. Expansion will be designed to be sustainable, scalable, and adaptable, allowing propagation across the TAMU System. More importantly, this program needs to be studied as a national model centering “servingness” in HSIs across the nation. |