Grant Projects 2022-23
3D Printers for Engineering & Physics | $5,000
Funding will be used to purchase two 3D printers for the engineering and physics building. 3D printers, an essential tool for hands-on learning in higher education and STEM programs, will allow students to learn new, critical skills and gain a competitive edge in the workforce.
Career Pathways Internship Grants | $3,000
The Career Pathways program proposes to provide compensation for students to enable them to work in unpaid internships for small business and organizations. Unpaid internships provide essential, relevant work experience, but those opportunities present challenges for both students and potential employers. For many students, an unpaid internship isn’t feasible given their financial situation. Integrating an internship grant program would increase the number of internships that are available and financially viable for students to pursue, simultaneously supporting career outcomes and confronting barriers for diverse student populations, in particular.
Childcare Expense Grant | $2,000
The Women’s Leadership Network is dedicated to creating opportunities for women to develop personal and professional leadership skills, and nurturing a global network of female leaders. In the School of Continuing Studies, our students seek those opportunities; however, many are single parents, often navigating several responsibilities at a time. And even more often, without support to help with childcare. The support provided by this grant will help ease that burden and create opportunities for women to excel in leadership positions. This grant would provide four individuals in the adult degree programs a grant of $500 each to help support their personal and professional development by helping with the cost of childcare.
Cultivating Female Leaders in Ministry | $2,100
The purpose of this request is to provide hands-on experience, mentorship and professional development for women desiring to pursue a future vocation in ministry/service. The Summer Fellowship Program places an average of 50 students in 20-30 ministries/nonprofit organizations for summer employment opportunities. A grant in full would fund a student's summer ministry placement and allow for expansion of the program's ministry network by partnering with a new ministry.
DEI Research Guides | $1,500
This project would fund one or two student positions to work supervised by a librarian to collect and organize academic and/or authoritative sources of diversity, equity and inclusion content, with an emphasis on voices from within the communities. This content would be used to create research guides on the library website to support student research and training on a range of issues. Potential topics could include: diversity in ministry, inclusion in leadership, disparities in health care, how to be an anti-racist, the Black Lives Matter movement, supporting first-generation students, OER for equity, etc.
NCAA Women Coaches Academy | $1,000
This grant allows Whitworth’s female coaching staff to attend the NCAA Women Coaches Academy. This amount would allow for female coaches (head and assistants) to fund the majority of the costs associated with the Academy along with travel. Usually coaches do not have any additional fundraising money set aside to put toward professional development, especially for assistant coaches.
Peer Research Consultants | $2,028.60
Students often lack confidence and experience with doing research. This grant would support a Peer Research Consultant (PRC) for 10 hours/week, for 14 weeks of the fall 2022 semester. The PRC would be a trained peer-advisor to help students with getting started in and feeling comfortable with doing research. They would be located in both the Library and in the Intercultural Student Center. This will be especially impactful for incoming students just beginning their academic journey at Whitworth. The consultant can help ease the fears of research and provide quality training in making the student more confident and skilled moving forward.
PRO Closet | $3,000
This grant requests gift cards for students to purchase proper and professional clothing attire needed for an interview or first job. Professional attire like suits and dresses are an additional cost that is often not in the budget of many college students, specifically low-income and first-generation students. These student populations are growing at Whitworth and whose financial struggles are particularly sensitive to the volatile economic and financial circumstances, which creates barriers in purchasing professional attire for the next step in their professional lives. However, we know that no matter a students’ financial situation, all students are concerned about how to show up as their best self for that job interview.
School of Business Student Lounge | $3,000
The Whitworth School of Business would like to remodel the main lobby area of the office in Weyerhaeuser Hall, Suite 310. Currently, the front office area is not being utilized efficiently and is not set up in a particularly welcoming or resourceful layout. The WSB looks to create an area that will be welcoming to students, parents, alumni, donors and the Whitworth community. To do this, we would like to rearrange and partially remove cubicles, purchase a few pieces of new furniture, add lighting, repaint a few walls to a lighter, more inviting color, and install an affixed study counter with stools. Our goals are to elevate the initial greeting and impression of the office, provide a space for students to work independently in between their classes, have an area for multi-person discussion and/or group work and have the flow of the office be more efficient and helpful for everyone.
School of Business Student Support Scholarship | $2,000
The Whitworth School of Business (WSB) would like to create a scholarship designed to assist a student who has high financial need, may have exhausted their funding opportunities, and who did not receive any other scholarships through the School of Business for the 2022-23 academic year. International students in particular do not qualify for state or federal aid, therefore they do not have the same opportunities for funding.
Textbook Lending Library Expansion | $2,000
The Textbook Lending Library was founded in 2019 for undergraduate students with financial need to borrow required texts for classes free of charge. With additional funding, the library will be expanded to serve graduate and continuing studies students as well. Most of Whitworth’s continuing studies and graduate students are working full time, raising families, and going to school in the evenings. They take this difficult journey to grow and launch a fulfilling career and greatly benefit from the financial relief of purchasing textbooks.
Women in Finance Student Club | $1,500
Whitworth’s Women in Finance club was established in 2021 and would not have been possible without the generous support of the Whitworth Women’s Leadership Network. The goal of WIF is to build female students’ confidence through competence, creating a weekly space where students come together to work a variety of hands-on problems, subsequently building competence and increasing confidence as they plan to enter into primarily male-dominated fields. WIF’s original curriculum focused on financial statement analysis and basic spreadsheet skills, and in academic year 2022-23, WIF is planning on continuing these topics while expanding into additional areas of hands-on application in order to broaden its impact. This will be accomplished via partnering with female business and economics professors in the Whitworth School of Business as well as through completing two Wall Street Prep© facilitated online courses. We are requesting WLN grant support to purchase 20 Wall Street Prep© course licenses, which will include 10 Excel Crash Course licenses and 10 Institutional Banking Soft Skills licenses for the 2022-23 club members.
Women’s Leadership Certificate Scholarship (Elevate) | $2,865
Elevate: Whitworth’s Leadership Certificate for Women was developed by the Women’s Leadership Network and Graduate Studies in Business Programs to create opportunities for women to develop personal and professional leadership skills. With one-on-one coaching sessions offered with each course, individuals have endless opportunities to engage, inspire, and be inspired by other women, helping them step into and excel in leadership. In the School of Continuing Studies, many students – and often single parents - are navigating several responsibilities at a time and are already committed to opening up opportunities for themselves, despite hardships they may be facing. We want to make that easier, at least financially, and provide for them opportunity to excel in leadership positions. We’re requesting a grant to offer three individuals in the adult degree programs support for their personal and professional development by attending one of the courses ($955 each) included in the certificate series.