Professional Development Grants

The goals of the Professional Development Grant program (PDG) of the Bloomington Staff Council (BSC) are to:

• Contribute to the professional development of all staff members.
• Support continuing and advanced education and skill development for all staff members.
• Encourage collaboration among staff members within the IUB community.
• Increase networking opportunities for staff members within the IUB community.
• Enhance professional advancement potential.
• Ease the financial burden of professional development events and activities for staff members.
• Demonstrate the value staff members add to the IUB community.
• Promote increased visibility of the staff and of the variety of professional responsibilities at IUB.
• Reward unique contributions to the staff and to the IUB community.

• Each applicant must be an IU Bloomington campus full-time staff not represented by a Union.
• Each applicant must have completed one year of continuous service as full- or part-time staff by the proposal deadline.
• The professional development event/activity may supplement or expand upon, but may not duplicate, any training/development currently available at IUB in any form or through any office.
• The professional development event/activity must be demonstrated to relate to the applicant’s current or future duties and responsibilities in their role as an Indiana University Staff member on the Bloomington campus.
• Each awardee will permit the BSC to use submitted photographs of and submitted writings by the applicant on the BSC website.
• Applicants may not have received a BSC Professional Development Grant within the previous two-year period.
• Current members of the BSC are not eligible to apply for the grants.

Each proposal must include the responses to following items:

1. Professional development grant application (pages 2-3 of this web form).
2. Description of the opportunity (250 word limit).
3. Explanation for attending (250 word limit).
4. Applicant job description (250 word limit) and resume/CV (to be uploaded).
5. Letter of support from the applicant’s supervisor.

The proposals most likely to be selected by the committee and awarded with funding will demonstrate any, many, or all of the following:

• Thoughtful and understandable descriptions of the professional development event/activity and the organization offering the event/activity (such as attending a training or workshop, presenting at a conference, recruiting, etc).
• A staff member’s representation of the staff, and of IUB, to an outside constituency, networking and/or collaboration opportunities (both within and outside of the IUB community).
• Clear and convincing explanation of the value and rewards the professional development activity will provide to candidate, candidate’s current Department/Unit, IUB.
• An impactful follow-up ‘contribution’ to the IUB community (such as an workshop/presentation, brown bag lunch discussion, collection of an artifact, demonstration, etc).
• Alignment with the goals, directions, strategies, and missions of the President and/or Provost.
• Strong writing/communication skills in a professional-looking proposal.
• A unique request or a unique event/activity (with a strong rationale/description behind it).
• Willing support and solid justification from a supervisor.
• Evidence of additional funding source(s), and/or demonstrated effort to secure additional funding (PDG funding would ideally supplement funding from additional sources rather than be the sole source of funding to support a professional development opportunity).

Completed grant applications (with the exception of the letter of support/recommendation from a supervisor, which should be sent by the supervisor directly to the BSC office) will be accepted at any time, but must be completed online no later than 5:00 p.m. EST by each deadline:

Example:  If the professional development opportunity takes place in January, the applicant should submit grant application materials by the October 1 deadline.  The applicant will hear back regarding their application status by October 15 and funds will be transferred on/after November 1.

• A maximum of $600 may be awarded to selected proposals.
• The Treasurer of the BSC will contact awardees to make arrangements to transfer funding to the awardee’s university account.
• Grants are not transferrable to another professional (or any other) employee.
• Grants may not be applied to a different professional development event/activity.
• The decisions of the BSC Professional Interests Committee are final.

Each grant awardee will provide:

• Digital photograph for inclusion on the BSC PDG web page.
• Presentation or 1 page maximum essay/letter/journal response to the professional development activity to later be shared with the council and/or inclusion on the BSC PDG website.