Three Imagine Fund Faculty Annual Research Grant awards totaling $10,000 were given to University of Minnesota Crookston faculty in 2023. Math, Science, and Technology Associate Professor Katy Chapman, Ph.D., and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (HSSE) Assistant Professor James Foss were awarded $5,000 for their multi-disciplinary collaborative project that will assess the impact of art (music and sketch/coloring) on the participants’ level of caring about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Business Associate Professor Ali Saeedi, Ph.D. was awarded $3,500 for his enterprise risk management and financial distress research looking at the impact of women advisory board members, and HSSE Professor Rachel McCoppin, Ph.D., was awarded $1,500 for her scholarly book project to support international travel for world mythology research.
Others involved in Chapman’s and Foss’ proposed project included Associate Professor George French, Ed.D., and Lecturer Lacey Anderson, and the other individual involved in Saeedi’s proposed project was Setareh Fasihi, Ph.D., an external collaborator.
The Chapman/Foss team’s method of research involves giving participants a choice of different genres of music related to the SDG of interest that they can listen to while coloring a color sheet designed to highlight the importance of the SDG being examined. They will then apply the tool developed to measure the disposition of caring and measure changes of caring as a result of the activities, and determine the impact of music/art on the disposition of caring about each of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“There is evidence from marketing and social science research that music and art can be used to impact attitudes and behaviors,” said the team in their proposal. “However, this technique has yet to be applied to changing people’s dispositions about the Sustainable Development Goals.”
“If successful, this exploratory research could produce a method that can be used by educators to measure dispositions about the UN SDGs,” they added. “This would also support the MPACT2025 for the University of Minnesota to build a fully sustainable future. One of the requirements outlined in the MPACT2025 is to achieve goal status in STARS reporting for each of the University of Minnesota campuses. STARS stands for the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System.”
The Imagine Fund is an initiative of the Executive Vice President and Provost in the Twin Cities,
established in 2007 through a generous gift from the McKnight Foundation to provide competitive financial support for research and scholarship in the arts, humanities, and design at the University of Minnesota. The creation of the Imagine Fund was driven by a strategic commitment to increase the impact and visibility of faculty work centered in arts, humanities, and design. The Imagine Fund includes three award programs, one of which, the Faculty Annual Research Grants program, is handled independently by each University of Minnesota campus. Visit https://imaginefund.umn.edu/ for more information.
The 2024 call for applications will be distributed in late January 2024, so faculty can start thinking of projects that meet the program objectives.
