UW Chancellor Biddy Martin announced the first projects to receive funding from the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates second round of proposals Wednesday.
The seven projects included improving student advising services, enhancing the McBurney Disability Resource Center and better accommodating students with mental and social support needs.
According to a statement, the chancellor decided to fund approximately $8 million in projects for the second round, nearly doubling last round's, which totaled $3.8 million.
Of the $8 million, Martin reserved $1.5 million for comprehensive student advising, a concern prevalent in the submissions, according to Provost Paul DeLuca.
The other proposals selected so far only accounted for just more than $1 million of that $8 million budget, according to budgets recommended by an MIU oversight committee in February. According to Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Aaron Brower, who served on one of the MIU's two oversight committees, the proposals Martin chose first require either one-time funds or relatively small continued funding. The oversight committee recommended 31 of the original 114 proposals to Martin in February.
All of Martin's first seven selections came from those recommendations, though Brower said the decision on which proposals to fund is ultimately up to Martin.
Martin is collecting more information regarding other possible proposals and plans to announce her final selections by mid-April, according to Brower.
According to DeLuca, Martin wanted ""one more opportunity"" to make sure the other proposals were consistent with MIU goals.
""We're pleased and impressed by the range and quality of proposals that were submitted. We're looking comprehensively across proposals so that, as a whole, the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates is having as great an impact as possible,"" Martin said in a statement.
Brower said the MIU program has two main goals: opening up bottleneck courses and providing innovative, transformative and educational student services.
Proposals for a third round of funding will be submitted this fall and announced in early 2011.
