Faculty Recommenders

A supervising faculty member in the College of Arts and Letters must submit a recommendation for your proposed research project. Once you have submitted your application through Submittable (ISLA's grant-making software), your designated faculty recommender will receive an automatically generated email with instructions for submitting their recommendation. 

Recommendations must be submitted within 72 hours of the application deadline or, for grants with a rolling deadline, within 72 hours of application submission. If we do not hear from your faculty advisor, we will contact them.

For Undergraduate Students:

We have simplified our recommendation requirements for undergraduate applications. Faculty recommenders no longer need to submit a formal written letter, but instead are asked to complete a brief questionnaire within the Submittable Application System concerning your specific project and whether or not you will need Internal Review Board (IRB) approval.

For Graduate Students: 

Graduate student proposals require a formal letter of recommendation from an advising faculty member. Letters should not be longer than 1- page in length, addressing the following:

• The learning objectives and intellectual merit of the student’s proposed activity
• The student's ability to carry out the proposed activity
• Your familiarity with the student’s academic work (inside and outside the classroom)
• A confirmation of your willingness to serve as the student's mentor for their research project.

Letters for projects lasting more than a month or projects involving higher risk due to travel or the nature of the activity should also provide the following:

• An informal assessment of the legal, environmental, and/or personal health/safety risks related to the type of work/study the student will be undertaking.

Please contact Therese Blacketor (tblacket@nd.edu) for additional information.