Hough Guidelines

The Hough Award

Corinthia and Orsamus D. Hough endowed this award to be granted to one or more student(s) who will use the award to directly engage with marginalized communities. Students can propose projects for internship experiences, student research, service learning opportunities, certain conferences, and related applied projects--as long as the student project engages them with marginalized groups. This award is competitive, and is normally given to pay expenses for work completed during the following summer. The recipient is to make a presentation to the department during the fall semester following completion of the project.

Deadline: Rolling Deadline

Eligibility for the Award

A student applying for the Hough Award must be a declared SOAN or Social Justice major who is returning to campus in the semester after their project.

Submitting a Proposal

If you have questions about the Hough Award, contact the Department Chair, Paul Dean (psdean@owu.edu). To submit your Hough Proposal, send an email to the SOAN/SJ Administrative Assistant, Deb Lovell (djlovell@owu.edu). Attach all required documents to the email. All attachments should have a descriptive title that includes your last name.

For the proposal, a student should submit:

1. A proposal as outlined below.
2. A resume/CV. At the end of the CV the student should list the name of their advisor and all the SOAN classes that they have completed to date, including the semester in which they took the course.
3. A detailed budget summary.
4. Documentation of budget items as listed in the summary.

Upon completion of a funded project, a student will submit:

1. A written report upon the completion of this award.
2. A presentation to the department in the Fall following using the award (spring if the student is away in the fall)

Proposal Outline

Title

Use the Main Title: SubTitle format. This title must be descriptive and accurate.

Purpose

Paragraph 1, Introduction: This proposal must include a clearly described statement of learning objectives or a research question. Articulate what you are asking for in clear and concise terms. What do you want to accomplish and in brief terms what will you do to accomplish it? (You will have an opportunity to expand on this later in the proposal.)  (100 words)

Paragraph 2, Context: Why is this issue important? How is this related to social inequality and cultural patterns? Which courses or course concepts have informed your understanding of the issue? What other background work have you done in this area of inquiry? (400 words, this might be two paragraphs)

Paragraph 3, Goals, immediate learning goals and long term impact: How will this project advance your career trajectory as a social scientist? How do you hope to develop your skills and experiences? (200 words)

Paragraph 4, Methods: What will you actually do? How will you accomplish your goals? This will look very different depending on what you are requesting the funds for. Perhaps you will present a paper at a conference. Perhaps you will work in an intern position for an aid organization in Cambodia. Perhaps you will conduct a research project with women at risk for maternal death in Cleveland. What will you do, in concrete terms, to accomplish your goals? (200 words)

Examples:

• If you are going to speak to scholars and activists: how will you meet them; will you make appointments ahead of time? If you are to attend a conference: what types of sessions will you attend; have you seen any in the program that are particularly interesting to you?
• How will you record what you learn? Will you take field notes to make sense of what you learn (why not be an ethnographer about this? Keep a field notebook?). How often will your write your field notes?
• Will you meet with or attend any related organizations? How do you know that you will have access? Have you contacted anyone in the organization?

Paragraph 5, Products: What do you intend to produce as a result of the use of these funds? Will you write a paper to present at a conference? Will you write an honors thesis based on this experience? You do need to write a completion report for the department, but what other products will come of this project? (100 words)

Paragraph 6, Dissemination of results: How will you communicate what you learned? This is beyond the report of completion and presentation to the department. (100 words)

Supporting Documents: Submit any documents that help develop the context for your proposed activities. This could mean many things: description of an organization and internship position from the official documents; a letter of acceptance; conference call for papers and the accepted abstract; etc.

Specific and Detailed Budget

How much money are you requesting? What are you requesting the money for? What is the break-down of those expenses? These are all questions that you must answer in detail. It will take a great deal of research in order to complete this table. You will need to complete a table in this format, but the categories will be different depending on what you are requesting the Hough funds to do.

Historically, awards are normally in the $1,000-2,000 range. Each year, we have approximately $5,000 that we can distribute. Proposals that are approved are usually funded fully, but there may be cases where a partial award is offered. Partial funding will depend on the number of applicants, the quality of the proposal, the nature of the expenses, and money available.

Examples of costs that can be covered by the Hough Award:

• Round trip airfare to destination
• Lodging at destination
• Meals (use per diem rates)
• Local transportation
• Entrance fees
• Travel insurance
• Travel-related vaccinations
• Conference registration (if the conference is focused on engaging with a marginalized group)
• Fees associated with specific experiences

Costs that cannot be covered by the Hough Award:

• Stipends paid to the student
• Payments made on tuition that bears academic credit
• Fees for travel abroad programming of all types including TPGs

This is an example of a budget to attend a conference:

Decision Criteria

1. Does the project goal meet the intended purpose of the Hough Award?
2. Were all parts of the proposal completed?
3. Were all parts of the instructions followed?
4. Does the student meet the inclusion criteria?
5. Is the project feasible?
6. How well does the proposal build upon past SOAN or SJ course work and experiences?
7. Is the student in good academic standing?
8. Are the budgeted items an accurate and reasonable cost? Are budgeted items documented?