Thank you for your interest in the Year of Emotional Well-Being Funding Opportunity.
Description
Emotional well-being is the knowledge and pursuit toward optimal psychological functioning. It involves the recognition of our thoughts and feelings in relation to our sense of self, relationships, life circumstances and reality, and aids our ability to manage stress, overcome adversity, reduce feelings of negativity, and approach life in a positive manner.
The Year of Emotional Well-Being offers an opportunity to engage collectively with a focus on restoring and enhancing our emotional well-being. The pandemic certainly has underscored the importance of fully supporting the emotional welfare of students, faculty and staff as everyone navigates the new terrain. This is a time of burgeoning research and collective reflection on our emotional needs and the qualities that make for a good life. Undoubtedly, our Year Of topic will also yield learnings that better people's lives well beyond the boundaries of the University.
The Year of Emotional Well-Being Steering Committee invites University of Pittsburgh students, staff, and faculty to submit applications to support activities connected to the theme. Applications for up to $5,000 to support faculty, staff, student, administrator & supervisor, and general community emotional well-being are invited.
- December 1, 2022, is the first deadline for proposals for the 2022-23 academic year. Proposals will be accepted from November 1 through December 1.
- February 1, 2023, is the second deadline for proposals for the 2022-23 academic year. Proposals will be accepted from January 1 through February 1.
The Steering Committee will review proposals as they are submitted. The committee will provide decisions in the two weeks following each deadline on proposals submitted prior to the deadline.
Please submit your application via Competition Space . You will also need to download the Year of Emotional Well-Being Budget Template (available on Competition Space) and upload your completed version with your application.
Proposals may be considered for the following audiences, as well as the Pitt Community at large:
1. Faculty Well-Being Examples:
- Cross-disciplinary conference discussing how emotional well-being influences various aspects of the research process
- Weekly wellness newsletter with tips for supporting faculty throughout the year, as well as how faculty can support students in the classroom
- Workshop on how to create a healthy balance between academic responsibilities and life responsibilities
2. Staff Well-Being Examples:
- Bringing in LifeSolutions to do a presentation for all staff, including those on third shift
- Stress release series focused on different aspects of mental wellness at peak times of stress during the staff lifecycle
- Yogathon for staff to encourage an understanding of deep breathing and balance, as well as other best practices
- Coordinating a series of well-being workshops for third-shift staff
3. Students Well-Being Examples:
- Campus recreation 4-hour yoga-thon
- Anti-procrastination event at the library that encourages students to store phones and other distracting devices elsewhere for a night of studying with scheduled breaks
- Healthy relationships workshop to help students recognize the signs of an unhealthy relationship and provide information about supporting peers who have been affected by misconduct
4. Supervisor & Administrator Well-being Examples:
- Lunch & Learn discussion how to best support employees’ emotional well-being in the workplace
- Implementing a recognition event to thank staff for their contributions to the University community throughout the academic year
- Training on how to identify stress and anxiety in the workplace and best practices for how to mitigate that among direct reports
Proposal Review
All proposals must demonstrate:
1. Alignment with Year of Emotional Well-Being theme
Applicants must address how their project will foster well-being (defined as the optimal and dynamic state that allows people to achieve their full potential); the proposal must demonstrate that it considers and accounts for considers subjective or objective well-being; the proposal must highlight how the request will contribute to the emotional well-being of both individuals and the community.
2. Evidence of need, challenge, and/or opportunity and benefit
Applicants must provide a justification for the project, sharing the need, opportunity, or challenge that it will address. The proposal should clearly define the target group that will be impacted by your project.
3. A commitment to Equity Diversity and Inclusion values, such as through:
- Cultivating positive and healthy relationships within a diverse community
- Critically interrogating wellness practices to ensure that they account for the intersectional needs of diverse individuals
- A commitment to equitable and inclusive practices in wellness offerings
- Events and projects that consider emotional well-being in unique, creative, and inclusive ways
4. Sustainable impact beyond Year of Emotional Well-Being by:
- Strategically connecting to existing programs or infrastructure
- Sharing of knowledge with peers to extend impact
- Supporting long lasting changes (curricular changes in a program, policy, organizational, or structural changes)
- Generating new knowledge/understanding
Projects also including one or more of the following are especially encouraged:
- Involve interdisciplinary teams that bring together more than one department at Pitt
- Involve team members with different roles at and connections to Pitt (student, staff, faculty, community members, alumni)
- Connect the University of Pittsburgh campuses
Reporting and Participation Expectations for Award Recipients:
Award recipients will be asked to submit a brief report to yearof@pitt.edu by May 30, 2023. Award recipients will also be encouraged to share their activities at the Celebration of the Year of Emotional Well-Being in April 2023 and through Canvas or D-Scholarship@Pitt, as described below.
Report: Please submit a brief (~750-1000 words) summary of your project activities and reflection by May 30, 2023. Your report will be made available through the Year of Emotional Well-Being website and should address the following:
- What was the need, challenge, or opportunity that your project addressed?
- Briefly describe the main activities of your project (who, what, when, where…). If you hosted an event, please let us know the attendance (and share photographs if you have them!). What were some successes or things that went well for you in this project? Challenges or barriers?
- What has this project positioned you take on next? Or what is a next step that you may be interested in pursuing?
- What can others learn from your project and/or its outcomes? How can others improve their own practices based on your findings? Or, what were some of the main take-home messages from your event?
Sharing: Please submit your instructional materials for inclusion in a central Pitt repository of emotional well-being curricula and educational resources. In doing so, your materials will be shared with the Pitt community. For awardees creating other outputs, such as posters, papers, and datasets, we invite you to make your work available through the D-Scholarship@Pitt institutional repository.
Participation in the Celebration of the Year of Emotional Well-Being (April event): In April 2023, we will celebrate your Year of Emotional Well-Being activities at an event for the University. This event will also include a closing speaker. You will be invited to attend the event and represent your project in a way that best suits it (a poster, lightning talk, demonstration, or table). Award recipients will be contacted in spring semester 2023 for information about ways to participate.