Dr. Shakila Merchant serves as the Principal Investigator (PI) of NSF-CUNY Advancing Research Impact on Society-Broader Impacts (ARIS-BI) Toolkit. She participated in the NSF ARIS-PI Writers workshop with several other BI community members from across the country. The Retreat was held from September 18 to September 21, 2023 at the Chauncey Convention Center, Princeton, New Jersey (NJ).
Earlier in the spring 2024, the CUNY Broader Impacts 101 workshop series was kicked off by Dr. Merchant on May 4, 2023, in coordination with City College of New York’s (CCNY) Office of Research and PI of Rutgers University ARIS-BI Toolkit, Dr. Janice McDonnell. Subsequent BI workshops to be held in fall-winter 2023, provide the CUNY community with a go-to BI informational hub. Dr. Merchant hopes to equip them with resources to help them better articulate their approach to creating their BI identity, and help the PIs, particularly the early career faculty members and researchers write successful NSF proposals and ultimately contribute to society through their broader impact-focused research.
The workshop allowed the BI toolkit community to dedicate undivided attention and time in articulating their BI focused peer review journal article. “In the academic world, we are often busy and swamped with our day-to-day schedules and trying to achieve work-life balance with little or no time to write and submit a journal article. So, having a retreat to focus only on writing an article was immensely valuable and really helped us all to intentionally focus on the contents of our papers, in an environment that supported peer-based discussions and deliberations” said Dr. Merchant. The pre-published manuscript will be completed by summer 2024 to be published in a special BI Toolkit focused issue in the Journal of Community engagement and Scholarship. The writers workshop was hosted and funded by the NSF Bi Toolkit project led by Dr. Janice McDonnell, PI of this award. Mr. Drew Pearl, Executive Editor of JCES, University of Alabama, who provided valuable insights on how to articulate our journal articles.
