URAP Faculty Applicants

• Full-time Northwestern University faculty.
• Non-tenure track faculty and lecturers who are teaching this year are eligible, and they are strongly encouraged to apply as long as they will be at Northwestern the following year.
• Postdocs teaching undergraduate coursework are eligible, and they are strongly encouraged to apply. Post-docs on two year fellowships can only apply for URAP in their first year.

Ineligible Faculty Applicants:

• Emeritus faculty, faculty retiring or leaving Northwestern the following academic year, single year visiting faculty, and other teaching faculty who will not be at Northwestern next academic year are not eligible to apply. URAP seeks to foster long-term mentoring relationships between faculty and students.
• Graduate students and non-teaching post-docs are not eligible to apply.
• Faculty from other institutions.
• Note: If you are a post-doc or other temporary employee of the university, you may encounter some difficulty logging into our application website because your LDAP University ID lists you as ‘staff’ rather than ‘faculty.’ If you are considering applying, please attempt to log into the site well before the deadline and contact the URAP Coordinator immediately if you have any difficulty, so that we can help you work around this problem.

Eligible Applicants:

• Undergraduate Northwestern students who are new to research.
• Undergraduate Northwestern students who are interested in conducting research in a new field that is significantly different than their previous research.
• Under applicable policy, the University cannot hire someone who is outside of the United States. The hired student must reside on US soil at time of hire and throughout the duration of the grant period.
• For international students: all URAP students must have a Social Security Number (SSN) before they are able to begin working/earning money. Students do not need a SSN to apply for the program. If the student is selected for hiring, then the Office of Undergraduate Research can write a job offer letter to start the SSN application process. SSN-related delays may impact the student’s ability to complete work during the grant period. Please talk with us prior to applying so you have a sense of timeline and process required and can make informed financial decisions!

Ineligible Applicants:

• Students who are not residing on US soil at time of hire or during completion of grant hours.
• Seniors graduating early cannot be selected for Academic Year URAP positions (given that most students do not begin working until Winter, and the student needs to be an active undergraduate student to be eligible).
• Undergraduate Northwestern students who have already held a URAP position.
• Undergraduate Northwestern students who are prepared to conduct independent research (you should apply for our independent research grants instead!).
• URAP awardees may NOT simultaneously hold an independent grant during their award tenure.

Please download a drafting-ready document version (hit “make a copy” when it opens in a new tab) that contains all required prompts and some context for the kind of responses the faculty review committee is seeking here. You can copy/paste your responses into the application portal.

Below is an overview of the key application questions the faculty review committee uses in their rubric evaluation of your proposal.

Section 1: Faculty URAP Project

• Your project synopsis?
• As a bulleted list, please write 3-5 research-related skills the student will develop through this work.
• What training will be required for the mentee to learn these research-related skills?
• What will the student be doing on a day-to-day basis to apply these skills? (tasks can be a descriptive bulleted list, if you prefer)
• Describe the kind of commitment you are expecting from the student?
• How will you help the student transition the research-related skills (listed in the previous prompt) into more independent work in this field?
• (optional) If you are interested in being considered for Kemper Foundation funding (additional money available, including through summer), please describe how your research project explores a topic that while not exclusively focused on the insurance industry, would offer direct implications for its growth, challenges, or transformation. This may include areas such as risk management, underwriting, customer experience, regulatory practices, or technology adoption. The Kemper Foundation will also consider applications focused on interdisciplinary research that draw perspectives from business, sociology, economics, data science, and law to explore how innovative practices can be implemented both in business and within the insurance industry.

Section 2: Mentoring Plan

• Will the student receive significant mentorship from someone other than yourself: (yes/no)
  • If yes: who is this person, and what is their role/title?
  • If yes: Please describe this person’s prior mentorship experience for context, then describe which aspects of the proposed project they will mentor and/or train the student.
  • If yes: how will you as faculty mentor support the mentorship of the undergraduate mentee, in addition to this other mentor?
• The expectation is that (regardless of any other people serving as mentors to the student) the faculty mentor completing this application will have consistent and ongoing contact with the mentee throughout the grant period. How will you meet this expectation?

Section 3: Funding Support

• Why do you require this grant to pay the student to be a research assistant?

Section 4: Research Assistant

• Do you have a specific student in mind to hire? (yes/no)
  • If no (running a search): Describe your ideal applicant.
  • If no (running a search): Describe your process for evaluating applications, potentially interviewing candidates, and what you will prioritize when selecting an applicant.
    • OR
  • If yes (pre-selected student): Enter the netID or email address of the student.
  • If yes (pre-selected student): In 2-3 sentences, explain how you know the selected mentee.
  • If yes (pre-selected student): In 2-3 sentences, why did you choose the selected mentee(s)?

Apply through this Application Portal.

• Log in with your NetID and Password.
• After log-in, you’ll see a table under the “My Applications” tab with any applications you have submitted, or students who have previously applied and indicated you as sponsor.  If you have never used this system, it will be empty.
• To begin a new application, click on “Discover Opportunities and Apply” tab, and look for open opportunities under the Office of Undergraduate Research header. You may need to click on “View All” to expand the view.
• If your dashboard shows that you are ineligible to apply to the Undergraduate Research Assistant Program, please reach out to UROffice@northwestern.edu to discuss.
• If you have already begun a draft of the application for this cycle, you can access the draft through the “My Applications tab” and will be looking for an entry that has your name listed as the applicant, and the status listed as “proposal”. Click the “Edit Draft” button in the far right column.
• Draft and submit your proposal! You can hit the “Save Draft” button at the bottom of the application if you are not yet done responding.

Final Submission

When you submit the application (via the Submit button at the end of the application), you will get one of two system responses:

• Option 1: Error message that there were some problems with your application. The errors will be highlighted in red; please review and correct them before you resubmit.
• Option 2: If there are no errors, you will be sent to a survey site. Doing the survey is a requirement to complete the application. It is a short survey that helps us continue advocating for funding and make improvements to the process.

You will receive an automatically generated email within 15 minutes of your successful submission.

Completion of application, if applying with a pre-selected student. If you are applying with a pre-selected student, you will need enter the student’s NetID or email during the submission process, which will autopopulate the student’s name and email. The student will receive an email within 15 minutes of your application submission asking them to submit their resume and short responses. The student will have a maximum of 24 hours after the application deadline to submit their supporting materials, otherwise the application will not be considered for review.

• 1. Why are you interested in working with this mentor, and why are you interested in this project (and perhaps this research field and/or methodology)?
  2. URAP is a program specifically for students with no prior research experience. However, you have likely developed skills that will enable you to work effectively with this faculty mentor. Please tell us about these skills and provide a bit of context about how you developed them.
  3. Why do you feel as though you are not yet ready to conduct research independently, and what specifically do you hope to gain from this experience that would leave you more prepared for independent research?
  4. (For students applying to the open job search only) How will you prioritize this position, and what other time commitments will you be balancing simultaneously?

• If you have a student in mind, speak with them prior to submitting your grant application to confirm their eligibility and interest.
• If you do not know much about their other experiences, we recommend you look at the student eligibility guide together to discuss their fit. You are also welcome to reach out to UROffice@northwestern.edu if you have additional questions.
• We recommend you work together to discuss your project, the role the mentee will play, and how this aligns with the mentee’s goals, too. Strong applications with pre-selected students often clearly indicate good communication between mentor/mentee pairs.
• If the student is a fit for URAP’s goals, they will need a resume and short responses to a few questions. After you submit your application, they will receive an email through the application system with directions on how to complete their portion of the application. Pre-selected students’ deadline is twenty-four hours after the faculty deadline.

• If you do not yet have an eligible student with whom you want to work, the Office of Undergraduate Research can help run a search for you. Traditionally these searches yield many high quality candidates – often to the point of surprising faculty members and/or requiring them to make very tough decisions.
• When you indicate interest in running a search, you will be prompted with application questions that ask you to describe your ideal candidate and your process for making hiring decisions. These responses will be piped into a draft of your job description, so it is helpful to write simultaneously for both the faculty review committee and future student applicants.
• Job descriptions will be posted for two weeks; you are required to consider any applicant that applies during this time. Many searches receive over 50% of their applications in the 24 hours before the deadline closes. Students will apply with a resume and short responses to questions that will help you more fairly compare applicants.
• The turn around time to review applicants and make decisions is relatively short and is on a fixed timeline because we need to award all positions simultaneously, and because OUR needs to complete payroll paperwork by the end of fall quarter. Please see the “Timelines” tab to overview the job search timeline; feel free to discuss this further with the URAP program administrator (UROffice@northwestern.edu).
• If you are not sure how you will review, evaluate, and decide amongst candidates, the URAP program administrator is happy to provide examples of what other faculty members have done in the past. Broadly, many faculty running searches read through applications first to create a short list, invite a subset of candidates to interview, and then rank order choices from there. Post-experience surveys from previous URAP mentors suggests that both conducting interviews and getting a real sense of a mentee’s other commitments are very valuable to making these decisions.
• In order to move applications through the system, you must leave feedback on every applicant to help contextualize your decision. As OUR guides you through this process, we will help provide useful examples.
• Students are able to apply to multiple URAP positions. Consequently, there is a chance your first choice candidate may also be another faculty member’s first choice candidate. Students can only accept one position, so we ask faculty members to provide a rank-ordered list in the event we must move on to your next choice. We will not reject students on your short list until we confirm that your top choice candidate has accepted the position; OUR can modify the feedback you initially submitted to the system should we need to move down the list.

• If a URAP student is work-study eligible (as denoted in their financial aid award letter accessible through CAESAR), then their URAP position will be converted to work-study. The student will be asked on the application if they are work-study eligible, and if so, they will be asked to share their work-study allotment. Please refer to the Work-Study website to determine eligibility and allotment.
• Note: work-study allotment and eligibility do not impact likelihood of selection for this grant. Knowing the allotment helps us calculate how many additional hours the student might be able to earn beyond the URAP award amount.
• Here is an overview of how that will work: work-study is a federal need-based financial aid program. At Northwestern, it is set up such that the government pays for 75% of the student’s hourly wage, and the department that hires the student pays the other 25%. Since the Office of Undergraduate Research is the hiring department for URAP jobs, we will cover the 25%, and there is no additional cost to the faculty mentor.
• Of note, work-study allotments are typically more than the URAP award allotment, which means the student may: 1) hold more than one work-study job (and it is the mentee’s job to communicate this to the mentor if this is true), and/or 2) be eligible to earn additional URAP hours given their work-study allotment. The average work-study allotment is $3,600 which is around 217 possible URAP hours. Students are often eager to maximize their work-study income. Consequently, prior to the grant beginning, the student mentee and faculty mentor should have an honest conversation about the student’s goals and commitments regarding work-study position(s), and if the URAP job is a viable way for the student to earn additional hours. For example, if the faculty mentor only has about 100 hours of work (i.e., the initial URAP amount of $1,660 divided by $16.60/hr), the student can only earn a fraction of the $3,600 allotment, the student may pursue a second work-study job since many students financially depend on being able to earn the full allotment. Conversely, if the faculty mentor hopes to hire the student for 217 hours, but the student already has another work-study job with which they plan on splitting their time, it is important for the faculty member to know about realistic time expectations for their URAP research tasks. The federal work-study program caps the number of hours worked per week at 20 hours.

1. The first step in the process requires you to formally accept the award (https://soap.northwestern.edu).
2. Assuming you accept and have an awarded mentee, the application portal will then invite you and your mentee to complete a Mentor/Mentee Expectations Agreement.
3. Lastly, your selected mentee(s) must complete their payroll paperwork and attend a mandatory URAP Onboarding Workshop with the Office of Undergraduate Research. During this meeting, we will go over the hiring process and the Workforce Software time entry system. In order to be hired, mentees must complete the necessary payroll paperwork (the student will receive customized instructions and can find additional details on our website under Info for Grant Winners). Legally, your mentee may not begin working until they complete all hiring requirements and are active in Workforce.

You, as faculty sponsor, will need to help your mentee(s) with their payroll paperwork in three ways:

• Identify the designated Workforce Supervisor (either you, or someone in your department responsible for approving the mentee’s hours in Workforce) in the bottom section of your award agreement form. This will be used when the OUR Administrator completes your mentee’s hiring paperwork.
• DO NOT allow the mentee(s) to begin logging any hours until they are on Payroll and in Workforce. Our office will keep you informed of what we know about the process; the OUR Administrator will email you once paperwork has been submitted AND once the mentee is active in Workforce. Please be on the lookout for these emails.
• Encourage your mentee(s) to complete the payroll paperwork as soon as possible. HR can take up to ten business days (or more) to process the hiring documents, which can significantly impact the hours your mentee is able to earn over the grant period.

Assuming you accept and have an awarded mentee, the application portal will then invite you and your mentee to complete a Mentor/Mentee Expectations Agreement. Only the mentor will have editing rights, but we expect this will be done collaboratively, and the mentee will be required to sign it as part of their award agreement, too. You can view a copy of the questions here in case it is helpful in advance (or for drafting), but the final version is submitted through the portal. We encourage both parties to reflect on their understanding of the project, timelines and expectations, and communication preferences. You will complete and submit this through the application portal. This should be completed within the first 10 hours the student works for you.

• The last pay period for the academic year URAP is the last pay period entry date before spring exams begin. The exact date is included in your initial award email, but it is typically in late May.
• You will be asked to complete a post-experience survey in early May (even though there will still be some time left for mentees to earn hours). This brief survey is mandatory and formally closes out your grant.
• The survey is administered earlier than the end of the formal grant end date because there is an opportunity to nominate your mentee for the Fletcher Rising Research Star Award. Your nomination is reviewed by the faculty review committee, who determine finalists and a winner. The winner is announced in late May before the school year ends.