The Faculty Development and Grants and Research held a presentation today at noon in the Martinsville room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union on “How to write a proposal to the Council on Faculty Research.”

Bob Chesnut, director of grants and research, led the workshop and encouraged the faculty members to participate in discussion.

Chesnut stressed a more professional writing approach among other tips to writing a successful proposal.

He encouraged attendees to write like they would write for The New York Times.

Chesnut said he thinks it is too early to know the results of his presentations like whether they have helped the faculty make better proposals.

“To tell between attendance of these meetings and successful proposals would be very difficult without having keeping extensive records of attendance,” Chesnut said.

His approach has been successful and earned him some appreciation.

“He has conducted three sessions on grants for faculty,” said Mildred Pearson, director of faculty development. “They have all been very informative and well attended. Faculty members have been very appreciative.”

Some faculty members thought that the presentation will help them write better proposals.

“Certainly,” said Genie Deerman, an assistant professor in sociology. “Providing examples we can actually see is very helpful.”

Besides just having his power point presentation as a hand out, Chesnut also distributed four examples of successful proposals.

Other audience members also learned from the session.

“It’s always very useful to come to these sessions,” said Robert Peterson, an art history teacher. “The advice about being specific with goals in the summer session will be helpful.”

At the end of the presentation, Chesnut wished everyone in the audience good luck for writing successful proposals.

The most important part of his presentation is “giving faculty pointers to succeed,” he said.