There have been a lot of stories this week about the no-so-smart federal SMART grants. The National Science and Mathematics Access to Retaining Talent (SMART) grant program offers $4,000 to eligible students who are majoring in an eligible field of study. It's these devilish "eligibility" details that have caused the recent problems.
First, as detailed by InsideHigherEd.com, more than a hundred students at Utah State University were told they were eligible for the $4,000 grants only to hear a week later that they were not. Apparently they are ineligible because they had taken too many credit hours to qualify (seniors are eligible only if they've taken between 90-120 credits). So it seems seniors are only seniors if they've taken just the required number of credits. The Utah State U website now clarifies this for prospective SMART grantees.
And in other SMART grant mishaps, you'll be happy to know that evolutionary biology is back! The Chronicle's articles on Tuesday and then today provide the full story, which is basically that the list of eligible majors for the SMART grant managed somehow to leave out evolutionary biology. Tough one to miss considering how hot the topic of evolution has been lately. But all's well that end's well. The Dept of Ed has released a statement explaining the oversight and evo-bio is now happily sandwiched between marine biology and environmental biology on the revised list.
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