Million Dollar Club honors grant leaders

During the past decade, Illinois State University has received nearly $210 million in grants from federal and state agencies and private organizations.  That funding, which supports a wide array of research, teaching and service initiatives, is the result of university-wide efforts to enhance grant writing.  Illinois State’s Million Dollar Club recognizes faculty and staff members who achieve a high degree of success in securing external funding.

As the name implies, the Million Dollar Club honors faculty members who have secured at least $1 million dollars in grants for research and other projects.  Seventy faculty members have been honored with club status since 2009.  Membership will surpass the 100 mark when a new group of faculty members are inducted in the spring of 2012.   First given to faculty members in the early 1990s, the Million Dollar Club honor was reinstituted in 2009.

“Membership in the Million Dollar Club has become a sought after honor at Illinois State,” said Rod Custer, associate vice president for Research, Graduate and International Studies.  “The reward recognizes a faculty or staff member’s hard work and productivity in securing highly competitive grant funding.  The high quality of research being done and the University’s strong support for research across the broad spectrum of scholarship and creative activities has resulted in more funding from top-tier agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.”

The growth in the number of Million Dollar Club members is a direct reflection of Illinois State’s rapid growth in research funding in recent years.  The University has seen an increase of nearly $10 million in external grants every decade since the 1980s, with annual funding now averaging in excess of $20 million.  The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs offers a number of services to help faculty and staff members identify and secure external grant funding. One such program encourages newer faculty to seek external grants early in their career and increase the overall number of competitive proposals being submitted to granting agencies  

Faculty and staff members in Illinois State’s Million Dollar Club Class of 2011 are David Barker, Mathematics; Ryan Brown, Curriculum and Instruction; Karla Doepke, Psychology; Saad El-Zanati, Mathematics; Ross Hodel, Educational Administration and Foundations; Tami Martin, Mathematics; Barbara Meyer, Curriculum and Instruction; Christina Moe, College of Education; Raymond Mucha, Health Sciences;and Laura Vogel, Biological Sciences.

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