STRATEGIES FOR YOUR EARLY CAREER SUCCESS
Tanya Golash-Boza is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. She has published five books and 53 articles and book chapters. Her latest book Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism (NYU 2016) was awarded the Distinguished Contribution to Research Book Award from the Latino/a Studies Section of the American Sociological Association. Her textbook, Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach (Oxford University Press 2018) provides a critical overview of contemporary race scholarship. In this blog, she shares advice that will help you balance life and work and attain a happier life on the tenure track. 
Writing proposals for research funding is a peculiar facet of North American academic culture, and as with all things cultural, its attributes rise only partly into public consciousness. A proposal's overt function is to persuade a committee of scholars that the project shines with the three kinds of merit all disciplines value, namely, conceptual innovation, methodological rigor, and rich, substantive content. But to make these points stick, a proposal writer needs a feel for the unspoken customs, norms, and needs that govern the selection process itself. ese are not really as arcane or ritualistic as one might suspect. For the most part, these customs arise from the committee's eorts to deal in good faith with its own problems: incomprehension among disciplines, work overload, and the problem of equitably judging proposals that reect unlike social and academic circumstances.
Tips for Writing the Project Description
The main purpose of this book is to provide some tips to the assistant professors who plan to write their NSF CAREER proposals. The idea of editing this book originated during a conversation with Dr. George Hazelrigg(program director at National Science Foundation) when I visited him late November 2006. He encouraged me to proceed. His support is greatly appreciated. During the first week of December 2006, I sent out invitations to the potential contributors, requesting them to send me their contributions by the end of the month. They responded with enthusiasm. I would like to thank all the contributors for their dedicated work in writing these articles with such a short notice. I have read all the articles in this book and learned a lot. I wish that I could have had a book like this when I prepared my CAREER proposals several years ago. I am confident that the readers will find the articles in this book beneficial. Please note that any opinions and recommendations in this book are those of the individual contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. --ZJ Pei
This cartoon from the NSF Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB) offers an easy to read breakdown of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) paying particular attention to details that are specific to their division.
© The University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131, (505) 277-0111
New Mexico's Flagship University
More at social.unm.edu
© The University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131, (505) 277-0111
New Mexico's Flagship University
More at social.unm.edu