How to Apply

Please submit your proposal through the Student Engagement Application form.

Proposals will be evaluated once each semester. To help you with your planning, proposals for Fall programming or courses should be submitted by August 1; Spring proposals should be submitted by January 1.

You will hear about your funding on or around August 20 or January 20.  So please plan your activities with these dates in mind, and do not request support for an activity that occurs right at the start of the semester.

• Our goal is to avoid the need for reimbursements, as this can be a slow process. To that end, we urge you to identify outings or activities where tickets or access can be purchased in advance. When that is the case, the Provost’s Office can pay directly, and save the headache of reimbursement.
  • Similarly, if you are organizing an event with food on campus, we will urge you to use our in-house caterer, so that we can process the payment directly without you having to pay upfront.
• When that is not possible, then funding is usually provided as reimbursement funding. That means that faculty (or students) will be asked to pay for activities in advance, and then submit receipts, bank statements, and materials from the event in order to be reimbursed.
  • CUNY’s process requires multiple steps, with approvals required from department chairs as well as the finance office. If there are errors in this process, it can move extremely slowly, even taking as much as 4 months to process.
  • Unfortunately, these are mandated regulations that we cannot alter, so please understand these limitations in advance, and explain them to your students, as well. If the timeframe of reimbursement is too onerous for you or them, please identify other kinds of activities that can be paid for in advance.
• For those of you inviting guest speakers to your classes, please note that they may not be CUNY or State employees, but must be a US resident in order to receive an honorarium. Typically, they will be asked to file paperwork to become a CUNY “vendor,” and payment will be processed through the vendor system.
• Finally, those of you seeking a stipend for students to work with you on a project, please know that stipends will be paid at the end of the semester.
• To be sure, the payment process has improved enormously over the last year, and we expect the funding of activities to continue smoothly going forward. So please continue to think of ways to expand what is happening in your classes, and turn to the Provost’s Office and these funds for support!

Within one month of the funded activity or event, the Hunter faculty member must submit a brief (2-page) final assessment report. This report should answer the questions:

1. What did your students learn from the activity or event?
2. What did you learn about your students?
3. If you were to facilitate such an activity or event in the future, what would you repeat or change?