Office of Grants and Sponsored Programs

The Commonwealth has provided $5 million to Framingham State for a major redesign and modernization project at the Christa McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science Learning. This exciting project should greatly expand the Center’s reach both on our campus and throughout the state.

Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a nearly $3 million grant to Framingham State and two of our sister institutions to support the development of a model for advancing early career faculty of color to full-time positions in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Framingham State University, Bridgewater State University, and Worcester State University will partner on creating a national model for a state university system to recruit, retain, and promote cohorts of STEM faculty of color. Framingham State is the lead institution on the effort, which will take place over 5 years.

FSU has been awarded $1.7 million to launch the Framingham Teacher Residency AmeriCorps Program aimed at guiding applicants from bilingual and underrepresented backgrounds toward teaching careers at the secondary level. This exciting new program has been featured in The Boston Globe and on WCVB-TV.

FSU, in partnership with Accelerate The Future (ATF), a private family foundation, received $1.39 million from the agency’s Home and Community Based Services and Human Services Workforce Grant Program for the “Diversifying and Expanding the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Pipeline” program. This program focuses on FSU’s well-established state license eligible (LMHC) master’s degree program in mental health counseling, a highly affordable and accessible mental health counseling graduate program. With an emphasis on recruiting and retaining BIPOC, bilingual, and culturally responsive behavioral health employees, these funds will expand a pilot of 60 bachelor’s level employees at three community mental health organizations in 2023 to 300 by 2025 through tuition reduction and onsite classes. The program will serve as a retention tool, allowing bachelor’s level staff to continue their vital work at Massachusetts community mental health organizations throughout the three-year graduate program and beyond. Fostering worker retention will address the shortage of behavioral health providers in the Commonwealth. 

A consortium of six colleges led by Framingham State University, as well as the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, has received a $1,341,866 federal grant aimed at increasing the number of college courses utilizing free Open Educational Resources (OER) rather than costly textbooks.  The project - Remixing Open Textbooks through an Equity Lens (ROTEL): Culturally Relevant Open Textbooks for High Enrollment General Education Courses and Career and Professional Courses at Six Public Massachusetts Colleges - will test the hypothesis that underrepresented students will achieve higher academic outcomes if free, culturally-relevant course materials that reflect their experience are utilized.

Colleges taking part in the effort, in addition to Framingham State, include: Fitchburg State University, Holyoke Community College, Northern Essex Community College, Salem State University, and Springfield Technical Community College. The project will provide monetary incentives for faculty to create new OER textbooks and adaptions of existing open textbooks using an equity and inclusion lens, which will result in significant student savings per year. For more information about the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), go to: www.ed.gov/FIPSE.

An anonymous donor has generously awarded FSU $295,000! This funding will be used to add a data analytics module to Starfish Early Alert software, and two student success coaches to help activate the data and provide student follow up and support. It will also be used to pilot a first year advising program, as well as one year's salary for a staff member in the Institutional Research Office.

Dean Susan Dargan submitted a successful $125,000 grant application to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to develop pathways to licensure for Framingham teachers who are currently teaching with emergency licenses that were granted during the pandemic.

History Professor Dr. Joseph M. Adelman’s expertise in revolutionary America has resulted in a $100,000 contract with the Omohundro Institute to run its Across America 1776 project. Dr. Adelman will serve as the project’s coordinator, assisting with planning and programming related to the 2026 semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) of American independence over the next five years.

Framingham State was awarded $96,043 to make enhancements to the Rams Resource Center, Framingham State’s on-campus food pantry. These enhancements include expanding healthy food options in the pantry, dedicating funds to provide meal plans and other basic needs, and offering grocery gift cards during breaks or summer sessions when access to dining services is limited or does not exist. This award will also fund two student internships.

The Baker-Polito Administration has announced more than $143 million in grant awards through the FY23 Round of the Community One Stop for Growth, supporting 337 local economic development projects in 169 communities. To view the full press release on the One Stop award announcement, please click here. FSU has received $75,000 to improve ADA accessibility to FSU’s Entrepreneur Innovation Center, improving the front entrance to make it fully accessible and upgrading one facility restroom for improved accessibility. The primary goal of the Innovation Center is to develop and deliver Framingham State University (FSU)'s entrepreneurship academic curriculum while maintaining a vibrant co-working space dedicated to helping MetroWest startups and seasoned entrepreneurs. The focus on Greater Boston's MetroWest region (between Boston and Worcester) grew out of a lack of incubators or shared working spaces in the market, and FSU’s desire to help start new, competitive, and innovative businesses.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) recently awarded the McAuliffe Center a $49,964 grant to run a project-based program that aims to foster awareness and understanding of global and local environmental issues among high-school age youth and their communities. Called Perspective of Earth Team Mentorship, the program involves teenagers from Framingham, Milford, and Marlborough High Schools to integrate environmental and climate education with civic engagement during out-of-school time.

FSU’s College Planning Collaborative has received $40,000 from MA DHE to continue MetroWest Scholars Early Start (MWSES), its Early College Program. MWSES enables FSU faculty to teach college courses to high school students at their schools. All courses are in person or remote (video conferenced). Each partner school offers two cohort dual enrollment courses per academic year. With the continuing evolution of MWSES and now the return to in person classes, we have expanded courses during the school day. Three of the six courses will be offered during the school day and three after school hours.

The Dorr Foundation in New Hampshire has recently awarded $31,771 to the McAuliffe Center’s innovative Perspectives on Earth Teen Mentoring Program (PETM). PETM promotes youth engagement in STEM disciplines by leveraging the youth’s concerns and passion for environmental issues in their communities of Framingham, Marlborough and Milford.

Massachusetts’ Department of Higher Education Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Initiative implements and enhances partnerships between high schools in public school districts and public college or universities to offer inclusive concurrent enrollment opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities, ages 18-22. FSU was awarded $29,727 in 2022 to continue to implement its Diverse Scholars Program.

Innovation Fund

The Danforth Museum was awarded $5,000 to provide ongoing planning and implementation of various accessibility systems.

Cultural Investment Portfolio

The Danforth Museum received $15,000 from the MCC Cultural Investment Portfolio which provides general operating grants to nonprofit organizations that enrich Massachusetts’ cultural life.

Festivals and Projects

The McAuliffe Center was awarded $2,500 from MCC to fund Science on State Street, Framingham State University’s annual science festival organized by the McAuliffe Center in collaboration with MetroWest STEM Education Network to serve learners of all ages in the MetroWest community. The festival is offered free of charge and takes place throughout the FSU campus in celebration of Earth Day. The focus of the festival is to promote environmental awareness and environmental justice.

The Sudbury Foundation has awarded $5,000 to FSU to provide environmental justice education through public art. This initiative involves collaboration between the Center for Inclusive Excellence, Campus Sustainability, and graphic design students. We plan to invite experts in the fields of racial equity, climate justice, and sustainability to speak with students about the urgent need to combat the climate crisis, particularly at the intersections of race and class. Students will then create a series of designs and images that we will prominently display via window decals on interior glass surfaces and exterior windows across campus.  

Additionally, Framingham State received two grants from The Sudbury Foundation last fall, including its second Racial Equity & Inclusion Award. The Center for Inclusive Excellence’s Director, will use its $3,000 grant to hold a student art contest that responds to prompts about racial equity and inclusion, and purchase seven to ten submitted art works to hang in the CIE. Dr. Irene Porro, Director of the Christa McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science, received $18,360 to help run the PETM program (described under the Dorr Foundation).

The Professional Science Master’s Degree in Biotechnology program has been awarded a $20,000 grant from The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) to host workshops in promoting biotech STEM education and recruitment. The first workshop will be tailored to the FSU seniors and the junior 4+1 biotech candidates.  The workshop will incorporate experiential learning, critical thinking, technical writing & documentation, and career opportunities.

FSU’s Christa McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science Learning has received $6,060 from the Main Street Group Foundation to support its Perspectives on Earth Team Mentoring (PETM) summer internship program, one of the three educational modules that comprise the year-long PETM program. This program provides work-based learning experiences for young adults to develop skills and practices sought after by many local businesses. PETM is an out-of-school time program serving high school students from Framingham, Marlborough and Milford high schools and two regional vocational technical schools, which are also state designated Title I schools, Keefe Regional Technical School and Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School. PETM leverages youth’s concerns for local environmental issues to motivate experiential learning and address students’ environmental literacy needs such as critical-thinking, evidence-based reasoning and action planning skills. Youth are charged to propose original strategies to reduce local effects of climate change, especially those impacting lower-income and vulnerable populations. PETM aims to contribute to the formation of citizens who understand the multi-disciplinary complexity of environmental challenges and are confident and competent in their ability to address them.

Talia Adry from the English Department received a grant from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation to travel to Los Angeles, California and research the L.A. Film Rebellion, the 1965 Watts Uprising, and the subsequent decades of violence and discrimination. The purpose of traveling to Los Angeles is to visit university archives, and help situate herself within the time period in which these events took place in the aftermath of the Watts Uprising, and the response by L.A. filmmakers. Professor Adry plans to share new research and insights with her students, and the Framingham State University community, with an ultimate goal of introducing a practical and effective method for incorporating anti-racist pedagogy in the first-year-writing classroom.

Framingham State was awarded $5,000 from the Schwartz Foundation to provide emergency support for high-need students. This emergency support will help keep our most economically-vulnerable students enrolled and on a pathway to a college degree and future self-sufficiency.

The McAuliffe Center received two grants from the Avidia Bank Charitable Foundation for their Science on State Street event and See Yourself in STEM Team Mentorship program. The Science on State Street STEM event provides high quality, interactive exhibits to engage the community in STEM. The Team Mentorship program offers a series of workshops about diversity, equity, and inclusion specifically applied to STEM education and professional environments for high school students from Framingham, Marlborough and Milford.

Since 2010, FSU’s Office of Career Services and Employer Relations (CSER) in collaboration with several FSU alumni, the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce, the TJX Companies, Inc., along with generous support from Enterprise Holdings, have partnered on the Suitable Solutions Professionalism Program during the fall semester, an effort to prepare students for the world of professional work while also educating them on networking and soft skills that are imperative for emerging professionals. COVID-19 and University budget cuts have significantly impacted the legacy of this program both in size and scope. This $4,662.25 grant will fund a second session during the spring semester of this unique and vital experience. This will enable the Suitable Solutions Professionalism Program to take place twice during the academic year, enabling up to 25 additional students to participate in this highly sought after, interactive learning experience.

The McAuliffe Center was awarded $2,500 by MathWorks to put towards Science on State Street, Framingham State University’s annual science festival organized by the McAuliffe Center in collaboration with MetroWest STEM Education Network to serve learners of all ages in the MetroWest community. The festival is offered free of charge and takes place throughout the FSU campus in celebration of Earth Day. The focus of the festival is to promote environmental awareness and environmental justice.