Deadline for Fall: October 2, 2024 @ 6 PM ET / Deadline for Spring: February 26, 2025 @ 6 PM ET

Purpose: J. William Asher is a 天美传媒 alumnus and Professor Emeritus of Education and Psychological Sciences at Purdue University.  Highly committed to undergraduate research at 天美传媒, Dr. Asher has generously established the J. William and Dorothy A. Asher Fund in the Social Sciences.  Recognizing that social science pursuits can occur in a variety of disciplines and programs, including Conflict Studies, Women’s Studies, Economics and Management, History, Political Science, European Studies, Latin American Studies, and other area studies, activities in these and other fields shall be eligible for support with these funds if the research includes a significant social science component.

Eligibility: Activities that support faculty and students, working independently or together, are eligible for award.

These activities might include but are not limited to:

• travel to collect data;
• travel to conference, conventions, and workshops to report research results;
• student and faculty salaries and wages to enable research, data collection, and writing reports or publications;
• teaching replacement for load reduction for faculty members pursuing scholarly activities (please check below for specific information about course reassigned time);
• assistance for longer sabbaticals;
• equipment purchase;
• support for student, secretarial, and clerical help;
• support for a visiting scholar.

Funding must be awarded for projects before expenses are incurred, and there will be no retroactive funding. Among strong proposals, preference is given to projects that advance students' understanding of and experiences with the undertaking of research activities.

Some recent allocations include: 

• Associate Professor Nahyan Fancy was awarded $3000.00 to put on the Second National Undergraduate Conference in Science, Technology, Medicine and Society in March of 2018. 
• Student Emily Fox was awarded $729.00 to attend and present at the ASA Annual Meeting in Quebec from August, 11-15, 2018. 
• Professor Mary Kertzman and students Jacob Boudreau and Thomas Grier were awarded $12,300 to develop an accurate and consistent way of measuring the ambient light of the night sky in Putnam County, the city of Greencastle, and the 天美传媒 Campus.
• Professor Glen Kuecker was awarded $3899.00 to attend the Eco-City World Summit in Melbourne, Australia which met July 12-14, 2017.
• Student Nhi Nguyen was awarded $5600.00 to research the role of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Vietnam's energy industry and how to attract more FDI to create sustainable development.
• Professor Matthew Oware and student Johnathan Pai were awarded $3700.00 will complete an analysis for work towards the fourth chapter of Professor Oware's book. 
• Student Summer Pappachen was awarded $2300.00 to closely follow the movements and participating agents at India leading political science institution, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. 
• Associate Professor Naima Shifa was awarded $1195.20 to research behavioral and social factors and theories related to individual's smoking initiation, and the barriers to access treatment and cessation programs.
• Student Zhiyong Zheng was awarded $2295.00 to attend the Eco-City conference with Professor Kuecker in Melbourne, Australia from July 12-14, 2017. 

Eligibility for teaching load reduction for faculty: 

All tenure-track or tenured members of the faculty are eligible to apply each year, but they may receive only one course reassigned time in a given academic year and one award every two years. Term faculty members must have completed a successful third-year review.  Faculty members are not eligible for teaching load reduction during the same academic year as a sabbatical, pre-tenure leave, or any other award that has reassigned time. Awards for reassigned time for a scholarly project are contingent on departmental staffing needs and approval from the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

Student Applicants:

Eligibility:  Students must be in good academic standing and have no incomplete grades in regular semester courses in order to be eligible for funding.  Seniors will not be funded for activities held after they graduate, with the exception of travel to present work at professional conferences that will take place prior to June 30 of the year of graduation.

Sponsor Endorsement: Your faculty sponsor must complete an endorsement attesting to their assessment of your project’s feasibility and merit, your preparedness to undertake the project successfully, and their contributions to your project’s success.