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Spark Grants

For ideas that can’t wait. Funded by a generous gift from Jeremy Allaire ’93, Spark Grants provide rapid-response faculty funding to catalyze projects in scholarship and teaching that have clear outputs and relatively quick timelines. Applications are reviewed every month, to capture the spark of an idea while the iron is hot.

Spark funding is currently depleted, and applications are not being accepted. The guidelines below describe the program for when applications reopen.

On this page

Who can apply

  • Faculty: all Macalester faculty members (tenure-track, tenured, non-tenure-track, visiting faculty, and postdocs) with at least one planned year of Macalester service remaining.
  • How many: you may hold one active Spark Grant at a time.

What Spark supports

Spark supports projects in scholarship, teaching, or both. Expenses should support and strengthen the proposed project.

Commonly supported

  • Travel to a project site, to collaborate with colleagues, or to share emerging work at conferences
  • Materials and equipment, such as software and datasets
  • Paid services directly supporting your work, including students whose contributions are vital to advancing the project
  • Lodging and meals for up to one week, for conference attendance, site visits, and similar short trips

Guidelines for specific expenses

  • Students. List the hours per week and total number of weeks of effort, and estimate compensation at the St. Paul minimum wage ($16.37 per hour for calendar year 2026).
  • Budget justification. Explain each expense in detail.

Not supported

  • Long-term housing and meal costs, and stipends for the applicants.

Awards and deadlines

  • Amounts: requests typically range from $1,000 to $15,000. Discuss larger requests with the Provost’s Office before applying. The review committee may recommend partial funding.
  • Monthly cycle: each application cycle closes on the last day of the calendar month, and decisions are sent by the end of the second week of the following month.

How to apply

Application materials

Submit through the Spark Grant application form (Macalester login), with:

  • A project proposal (PDF) that includes a description of the project, under 500 words, situating its novelty and its impact on your own work and the mission of the college (figures welcome); a detailed budget justification; a timeline; and expected outcomes
  • An updated CV (PDF)
  • Spark Grant guidelines (Macalester login)

Research approvals

If your project involves human participants, live vertebrate animals, or other regulated research, it needs approval before work begins. See Research Compliance for which review applies and whom to contact.

How proposals are selected

The faculty members of the Strategic Planning and Analysis Committee (SPA) review applications and recommend funding to the Provost’s Office, considering:

  • the impact on your scholarship or teaching, and on students and the college;
  • whether the grant will catalyze meaningful momentum within 6 to 12 months, such as new findings, creative work, collaborations, or a pivotal next step.

If you are awarded

  • Within two months of completing the project, submit a short reflective report (250 to 500 words) on its progress, outcomes, and impact, written for an external audience.
  • One goal of Spark Grants is to share stories of faculty scholarship, creative work, and innovation, particularly through the Advancement and Communications offices. Photos, images, links to online work, and other supporting material are welcome.

Recent awardees

Spark Grants awarded since the program began in 2026, most recent first.

September 2026

  • Kristi Curry Rogers (Biology): Science in Progress: From Collections, to Capstones, to Manuscripts

August 2026

  • Lisa Mueller (Political Science): Conversations Across Africa

July 2026

  • Morgan Adamson (Media and Cultural Studies): Untitled (Twin Cities ICE Documentary)
  • Amy Damon (Economics): Economics Department Retreat on AI and Academic Integrity

May 2026

  • Steve Guglielmo (Psychology): Assigning Collective Responsibility
  • Alix Johnson (International Studies): Tensions in Arctic Infrastructure
  • Will Mitchell (Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science): Differential Equations: An Introduction
  • Leah Witus (Chemistry): Investigation of the Intrinsic Ester Hydrolysis Activity of Human Peptide Hormones

April 2026

  • Tia-Simone Gardner (Media and Cultural Studies): Undivine Time: Photography, Sculpture, and Participatory Archive
  • Christie Manning (Environmental Studies): Climate Storytelling and Collective Climate Action
  • Lauren Milne, Shilad Sen, and Susan Fox (Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science): GenAI Workshops and Tutorial for CS
  • David Moore (English; International Studies): Documenting Lillie Maie Hubbard, U.S. Foreign Service Pioneer, 1898–1997
  • Getiria Onsongo (Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science): Evaluating the Evo2 Genomic LLM with a Novel Dataset
  • Linda Sturtz (History): Attend the NHC Summer Writing Institute

March 2026

  • Morgan Adamson (Media and Cultural Studies): I Am the Strange: The Afterlives of Forever Chemicals
  • James Doyle (Physics and Astronomy): Passive Cooling Strategies for Sustainable Design
  • Blanca Gimeno-Escudero (Spanish and Portuguese): Research and Book Presentation
  • Gonzalo Guzmán (Educational Studies): A Greater El Movimiento: Castaneda v. Granger Public Schools (1973) and Guillermo Nicacio v. A. Ludlow Kramer (1974)
  • Xavier Haro-Carrión (Geography): Building a Pollinator Corridor between Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas: The Attainable and Unattainable
  • Lesley Lavery (Political Science): Closing Time? Navigating Community and Conflict Amid Fiscal Austerity
  • Kelly MacGregor (Geology): Sampling Residential Drinking Water Wells to Establish Background Manganese Levels near Emily, MN, in Light of a Proposed Metals Mine
  • Alicia Muñoz and Erika Busse-Cárdenas (Spanish and Portuguese; Sociology): Placemaking under Surveillance: Transnational Latine Communities in the Midwest
  • Leslie Myint (Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science): The True Causal Impacts of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center
  • Katie Phillips (History): “The Land Is the Only Thing”: Ojibwe Activism, Environmentalism, and Tourism in Northern Wisconsin
  • Megan Vossler (Art and Art History): Figure Drawing for Every Body: An Innovative, Inclusive, and Accessible Open Educational Resource

Questions

Previous changes

Updates to the Spark Grant guidelines, most recent first.

  • April 16, 2026

    • Clarified that stipends for the applicants are not covered.
  • March 11, 2026

    • Lodging and meals are covered for short trips such as site visits, as well as conferences.
    • Clarified that applications are reviewed every month, with each cycle closing on the last day of the month.
    • Clarified that review is by the faculty members of SPA and the Provost’s Office.
  • March 9, 2026

    • Spark Grant guidelines first issued.