** Moderator: Richard Lucey April 9, 2008 1:30 PM ET **

Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to your OSDFS
Models Program. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode.
Later, there will be a question and answer session, which instructions
will be given at that time. If anyone should require assistance, you can
press star, then zero, and an operator will assist you. And as a
reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

And now, it\'s my pleasure to announce your host, Richard Lucey.

Richard Lucey: Thank you, John.

Good afternoon, folks. This is Rich Lucey with the Department of
Education\'s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, and welcome to our
national technical assistance conference call for this year\'s
campus-based models program grant competition.

Before I get started with all of the specifics regarding this year\'s
grant program, let me quickly review the agenda that I have put together
for this afternoon\'s call. Briefly, we\'ll talk about the goal of the
grant competition. And then, I will review for you the organization of
the application package that we released this past Friday. I will talk
briefly about the two different project periods that we will have in
play for this year\'s awardees. And then, I\'ll move into a discussion
of the four elements of the absolute priority, the three different
recognition types, the requirements of this year\'s competition, the
three selection criteria, and then I\'ll finish up the call with some
grant proposal organization tips and a brief overview of the peer review
process.

My intention during the call is to allow you to ask questions as you
have them. And I will certainly be able to notify the operator when the
appropriate time is for that to happen. My intent is to discuss each of
these blocks of information and then open it up for questions. So, I
would suggest that, as thoughts come to you or questions arise in your
mind, to briefly jot them down on a piece of paper so you don\'t forget
them. And then we\'ll take your questions and I\'ll answer them as we go
along.

I do expect to take the full two hours for this call, covering all of
the items that I just mentioned on the agenda.

To start off with the goals of the grant competition this year, it is a
significant change from the way in which we have conducted this grant
program in the past. As many of you may know, we\'ve conducted this
competition since 1999 as a result of direct

appropriation from Congress. And as a result of our experiences over the
last couple of years, we have moved to a three-tiered level of
recognition program that I think also will allow schools to be
recognized by the Department of Education for their different programs.

And for that reason, the goals of this grant competition this year are
for the Department of Education to identify and disseminate information
about exemplary and effective alcohol or other drug abuse prevention
programs that are being implemented on college campuses. And through
this grant competition starting this year we also will recognize
colleges and universities whose programs, while not yet exemplary or
effective, show evidence that they are promising.

The application package for this year\'s competition became available
this past Friday, on April 4th. The application transmittal deadline for
the competition is May 19th of 2008. And later on during the grant
proposal organization tips part of this presentation I will discuss the
different intricacies that are resulting from how you submit your
application. Because we do allow not only the electronic submission of
an application, but also submission in paper format, by mail or by hand.

We are estimating to make five new awards this year. And that does not
necessarily mean five exemplary, five effective or five promising
programs. It indeed can be any mix of those three levels of recognition.
I also will state that that number is simply an estimate and we are not
bound by that number. But based on the amount of money that we have
appropriated to us by Congress, it is our estimate that five new awards
will be made this year.

If you\'ve had an opportunity to print off a complete copy of the
application package, I will point out that there are four major sections
of the application package. Section one deals with the application
submission procedures and the instructions by which you follow,
depending on the method for which you will submit your application.

Section two is the program background information. And it is here that
we give you some background information, specifically on preventing
alcohol and other drug abuse among college students. We talk about the
funding priority, as well as the four elements that must be met by an
applicant in order to meet that priority, which we\'ll discuss in just a
bit. We also talk about the three selection criteria in this section, as
well as provide you with some answers to some frequently asked
questions.

In section three of the application package are the legal and regulatory
documents that drive this particular grant program. This is a copy of
the Notice of Proposed Priority, which was first published in the
Federal Register on December 26th of 2007. And then we have the Notice
of Final Priority, which was published in the Register on April 1st, as
well as the Notice Inviting Applications.

And then, finally, in section four you will see the general application
instructions and information. And this is the guidance that we provide
for you on how to prepare for putting your application together, how to
organize it, as well as the instructions for all of the standard federal
forms that you must submit with your proposal. And lastly, a checklist
for preparing for submitting your application.

We do intend to make these awards by August 1st of 2008. There are two
different project periods that will be in play, mainly because of the
fact that we have established three different levels of recognition. So,
for a school that we recognize as having an

exemplary or an effective program, they will be awarded an 18-month
grant that will start August 1st of 2008 and go through January 31st of
2010. And for a school that we recognize as having a promising program,
it will be awarded a 12-month grant which will begin August 1st of 2008
through July 31st of 2009. And later on in the presentation I will
explain the difference in that 6-month period between the 18 months and
12 months, depending on the level of recognition that you might be
recognized for.

Before I get into the four elements of the absolute priority, let me
indicate that I do serve as the competition manager for this grant
program. And all administrative questions, any questions that you have
or clarification that you may need about the grant program, the
priority, the selection criteria or the process should be directed to
me, either by email \-- and my email address is located in several
places in the application package, but I will give it to you now so that
you have it. My email address is Richard.Lucey@ed.gov. Or, you can reach
me by telephone, and that number is 202-205-5471.

I do not dissuade people from contacting me by telephone but, typically,
email is the best route to take mainly because it\'s sometimes easier to
just simply jot a note or an answer back to someone by email, but also
to protect not only myself and the answers I give you, but you as the
potential applicant, it is best to have my responses to you in writing.

So, we\'ll now move on to the four elements of the absolute priority.
And I will be quite direct in how I present this information because I
know it takes a lot of time and effort to put a proposal together. And
it truly would be a shame to have your application screened out and not
even read by the peer reviewers simply because you did not address all
four mandatory elements of the priority in your application. So, I'm
going to cover all four of those elements right now and, after I discuss
the four, I\'ll open it up for any questions that you might have on
information presented to this point.

So, as I indicated earlier, we released or published a Notice of Final
Priority in the Federal Register on April 1st. And essentially, that
means that we\'ve issued an absolute priority, which means that
potential applicants may not deviate from the priority that we have
established for this program. And as such, to meet the priority in its
application, an applicant must do four things. Your failure to address
any or all four of these items will cause your application to be
screened out and, therefore, it will not be assigned to a peer review
panel and considered for funding.

The first element of the priority is that the applicant must describe
the program that has, for at least two full years, been implemented on
its campus. And as part of the description of that program you must
discuss the structure and the content of the program, the specific
student population that is targeted by the program, as well as any
unique features of the program.

Since the deadline for this application is May 19th, you basically
should be looking at the latter part of April or the early part of May
of 2006 as the time for, after that date, would not be eligible. So,
anything that was created prior to the end of April or the early part of
May, 2006, up until this point, would be considered at least two full
years. And it does not necessarily matter if it\'s based on a quarter
system or a semester system. But, the important thing is for you to
clearly indicate in your application the start date of the program that
you are proposing to the Department of Education as an exemplary,
effective or promising program so that we can clearly see that this
program has been in place on your campus for at least two full years.

The second element within the absolute priority is you must provide the
detailed theoretical basis for the program\'s effectiveness. Not only
that it works, but why it works. And a lot of this information will
naturally flow from your responses to the three selection criteria that
I\'ll discuss a little bit later on. But, we do want to see in your
application that basis or that theory for why this particular strategy
or program that you\'re submitting to us works.

The third element of the absolute priority is crucial to getting your
application screened, and that is for you to provide the specific data
that demonstrates the program\'s impact on the specific targeted student
population you identified. And that includes any evidence of cognitive
or behavioral changes, or both, among the target population. It is not
enough simply to say that evidence of the effectiveness of your program
was a decrease, for example, in high-risk drinking. What we would want
to see is for you to specifically identify the percentage decrease, or
the point decrease that you\'ve actually seen among your student
population targeted by the program. So, just as I\'ll discuss later in
the proposal tips, be very clear and be very specific in providing the
data that demonstrates the program\'s impact.

The fourth and final element of the absolute priority \-- and this is
new this year, even though the element itself is not new \-- is for you
to consent to a site visit to clarify information in the application and
to verify evaluation data.

The site visit is a unique aspect of the peer review process for this
particular grant program, and I\'ll talk about it a bit later. And the
site visit is not something that occurs for every single applicant.
We\'ve indicated that in the Frequently Asked Questions, that not all
applicants receive a site visit as part of the peer review process. But,
the purpose of that site visit is simply to provide another source of
information about each project to the Department of Education. And when
the site visitors go out to your campus, they are going to be there for
two main purposes. One is to clarify information that may have come up
during the first stage peer review process, and to verify information
that you\'ve included in your application package. So, it\'s a clarify
and verify process.

I also have indicated in the Frequently Asked Questions section of the
application package, since this is a new element for this year\'s grant
program, is where do you actually put that consent. And we\'ve indicated
that applicants have the discretion as to where they clearly consent to
the site visit in their application. But, we do recommend that you
clearly consent to it, not only in the abstract section of your
proposal, but also in your narrative response to Sub-Element A under
Project Evaluation.

When we go through the screening process, we are not necessarily reading
your application word for word \-- I\'ll discuss this later in the peer
review process piece. But what I want to be able to see as a screener of
the application is quickly locate where you\'ve consented to that site
visit. So I, if in your shoes, would basically put that right up front
in the abstract, and then I would also put it in the project evaluation
section since that is the area where you talk about the evidence of the
effectiveness of your program.

So, those are the four elements of the Absolute Priority. As I
indicated, all four of those elements are a requirement under the
priority. And a failure to include and address any or all of them in
your application will cause you to be screened out and your application
will be deemed ineligible.

So, at this time I will ask the operator to open this up for questions
and we will take it from there.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have a question
or comment, you can press the digit one on your touchtone telephone. If
your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the
queue, please press the pound key. Once again, if you do have a question
or comment, please press the one key at this time.

I do show a couple questions coming in.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Operator: Our first question is coming from Caller 1 from Finger Lakes
Community College.

Caller 1: Hi, Rich. I\'m calling for two reasons. One, for budgetary
purposes, are stipends allowable for faculty to tailor, for instance,
the Most Valuable Players\' curriculum to meet the needs of a community
college?

Richard Lucey: Generally, to answer your question around the
allowability of stipends as a budget item, they are allowed. We have in
the past allowed grantees to budget for stipends to faculty members, for
example if they were going to take part in a curriculum infusion
component of a project, of if they were going to help mentor students
that\'s typically outside of their normal faculty hours or such like
that. So I would say, based on just the general nature of your question
in a universal way that such a stipend would be acceptable.

Caller 1: And the second question is, in reading the application, what
is a \"state point of contact?\"

Richard Lucey: Okay. The state point of contact. Not all states
participate in this particular process. But, if you\'ve printed out a
copy of the application package itself, it is going to be one of the
last few pages. It might actually be the third or fourth page from the
end of the package. It\'s included in Section Four, where we talk about
the intergovernmental review of federal programs.

And basically, this executive order allows a state to review and provide
comment on an application that you are planning to submit. We have
provided for you in that brief section about intergovernmental review a
website link that you can click on to view a list of the states that
participate in the intergovernmental review process. As I mentioned, not
all states do. So, if you do not see your state listed once you\'ve
clicked on that link, then basically you can indicate on your
application cover page, which is the 424. I believe that it is question
19 on the coverage page. It asks if the application was subject to
review by the state under the Executive Order 12372 process.

You never check block C. So for all of you that are listening, this is a
tip for all of you. The whole grant program is subject to review. So,
that is why you do not want to indicate C. You simply can check block or
item B if your state is not listed because, as I\'ve said, not all
states participate. And if your state is listed, then that means you are
required to notify your state that you are planning to submit a proposal
for this grant program and ask them what the process is by which they
want to review your application.

Many states, even though they participate in the process, will not
review your application and that\'s fine. But with your application that
you submit to us, you are required to include a copy of the letter or
email message, whatever other written notification or documentation that
you have, that you sent to the state single point of contact to notify
them that you were planning to submit a proposal under this grant
program.

Caller 1: Thank you.

Operator: Okay, thank you. Our next question is coming from Caller 2
from California State University.

Caller 2: Hi, Rich.

Richard Lucey: Hi, Caller 2.

Caller 2: I had a question about the site visit parts again. I just
didn\'t hear the whole thing.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Caller 2: You want us to address the site visit, allow that, in the
abstract and in the review section?

Richard Lucey: Right. You have the discretion to place the consent
wherever you want. But as part of the Priority, the fourth element is a
proactive consent on the part of the applicant to a site visit, if
chosen, to clarify information that\'s in your application and to verify
your evaluation data.

Caller 2: Okay.

Richard Lucey: We have said that the easiest place for us to locate that
is for you to simply state it right up front in the abstract. And how
you state it is up to you, but you can just \-- it could really be as
simple as, \"Our university consents to a site visit to clarify
information in our application and verify evaluation data.\" It really
can be that simple.

Caller 2: Okay. That\'s what I thought.

Richard Lucey: Yeah.

Caller 2: Okay. Just basically addressing it and allowing it.

Richard Lucey: Just basically \-- and I would suggest in the abstract
and then, just to be safe, put it in the project evaluation section as
well.

Caller 2: Okay. Thank you, Rich.

Richard Lucey: You\'re welcome.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Caller 3 from
University of Houston.

Caller 3: Hi, Rich. I have a question about the site visit, too.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Caller 3: Just wondering, during that visit will they want to meet with
key stakeholders on campus? And how many \-- will it be a couple days\'
site visit, or\--?

Richard Lucey: Glad you asked the question. Actually, it\'s a one-day
visit. And what we do is send out a team of two non-federal reviewers.
These are folks who likely \-- in all likelihood did not read your
application as part of the first stage review. So, this is another fresh
set of eyes, if you will.

Caller 3: Okay.

Richard Lucey: And we send them out. They basically will set up the
specific day, as well as the agenda with the campus. Once we\'ve
indicated to the team that we\'re sending you to XYZ University. And
every site visit team does it differently, even though we train them
with a specific protocol and what to look for. I have had campus teams
or site visit teams go out and actually meet with the campus president,
if that\'s allowed \-- if the schedule allows, the VP for Student
Affairs, students, of course the proposed project director, coalition
members.

So, certainly the \-- some of the proposed or potential key stakeholders
that you\'ve identified could be part of an agenda that is established
between the site visit team and the campus. But, it is a one-day visit.
It typically takes place starting in the morning, 8:30 or 9:00, will go
till the mid \-- till a later part of the afternoon. And that basically
will cover the information that they need to report back to the
Department of Education.

Caller 3: Great. Thanks a lot.

Richard Lucey: Sure.

Operator: Thank you, ma\'am. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do
have a question or comment, please press the one key at this time. And
I\'m showing no further questions.

Richard Lucey: Okay. So, I will move on to the next part of our agenda,
which is to talk about the recognition types that we\'ve established for
the grant program. As I indicated at the top of the call, this is a
significant change from the way in which we\'ve conducted the
competition in the past. In the past, we simply identified a campus as
having a model program. But our experience over the last couple of years
is \-- has caused us to take a step back and look at some varying tiers
of recognition that we could establish for the campuses that submit a
proposal and that are ultimately recommended for such by the site visit
team.

So, we have established three tiers of recognition or three levels of
recognition if you will, for this year\'s grant program. Level one is an
exemplary program, level two is an effective program, and level three is
a promising program. Now, I\'m going to go over each of the three
definitions in just a moment and try to point out the distinct
characteristics, if you will, between each of the three.

But before I do that, let me indicate that it was not our intent, nor
should it be your intent as you\'re putting a proposal together, to try
and match up the three levels of recognition that we\'ve identified with
the tiers of effectiveness that have been identified by the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Many of you are likely
familiar with those four tiers of effectiveness that were first
identified in the NIAAA\'s report back in 2002. There is no direct
correlation between, for example, level one, an exemplary program, and
NIAAA\'s tier one, an effective program or strategy among college
students. So, I do want to just put that out there, that these are
distinct categories. They are not intended to be related, nor should you
necessarily make a direct correlation to them in your application.

So with that, let me briefly go over the proposed, or rather the final
definitions for you that are established for exemplary, effective and
promising programs.

When we first established the program for this year, we did consciously
set a rather high bar or high standard, if you will, for an exemplary
program. And as such, an exemplary program in terms of its outcomes
would see only one of two particular outcomes. One would be the actual
reduction in alcohol or other drug use among college students. So,
you\'re talking about prevalence rates here specifically. The other
outcome that we would allow in terms of an exemplary program would be
reducing the problems, or what many would commonly refer to as the
negative consequences, that result from alcohol or other drug use among
college students.

In the definitions, which are now firmly set in stone, you will see in
all three of the definitions that we have talked about a strong
theoretical basis. Well, that directly ties back to the \-- one of the
four sub-elements that I talked about earlier within the priority, where
you had to provide the detailed theoretical basis for the program\'s
effectiveness. So, there you will see the link between the definitions,
as well as the absolute priority and, ultimately, in your response to
the selection criteria.

So again, for an exemplary program, we\'re looking for one of only two
outcomes - a reduction in use of alcohol or other drug use among college
students, or a reduction in problems resulting from such use among
college students, using a research design of the highest quality.

And we have gone on to say, in that definition for exemplary program,
that a research design of the highest quality means an experimental
design in which we know, and for that particular research method, it
means students are randomly assigned to participate in the project being
evaluated \-- that would be your treatment group \-- or to not
participate in the project, and that would be your control group.

However, when we first put this together we knew that we were setting up
a bit of an ethical issue by forcing experimental designs if a campus
was using a strategy or a program, if you will, that has already gone
through a high level research design as evidenced in the literature or
in the research field. And so, as such, you will see in the extension of
the definition for exemplary program we have indicated that a
quasi-experimental evaluation of the program\'s implementation on your
campus, that may be an acceptable research design if a strong,
experimentally determined evidence of the program\'s effectiveness
already exists.

Simply as an example, I will bring up the strategy of brief motivational
interviews, which I know also is indicated in tier one of the NIAAA
report. There is enough evidence in the literature to suggest, or to
document, that brief motivational interviews are an effective strategy
in reducing alcohol abuse among college students.

Since that well researched and well defined information is already
documented, a school does not necessarily need to do an experimental
design on their campus of brief motivational interviews. That is why
we\'ve allowed for a quasi-experimental evaluation of brief motivational
interviews if that\'s the research design that you\'ve used to show
evidence of that particular strategy on your campus.

So again, just to briefly review what are the two outcomes of an
exemplary program, it would be a reduction in use among students, or a
reduction in problems associated with such use among college students,
using a research design of the highest quality.

Moving on to effective program, you will see the distinction between it
and exemplary is in the outcomes. Again, we talk about a strong
theoretical base. We talk about the

programming \-- program having been evaluated using either an
experimental or a quasi-experimental research design. So, you\'ll see
just in that there is not much difference \-- no difference really at
all \-- between exemplary and effective. But for an effective program,
we have opened up the options for you in terms of outcomes.

We still are looking at reduction in alcohol or other drug abuse or use
among college students, the reduction of problems resulting from such
use. But we\'ve now opened it up to include the reduction of risk
factors, or the enhancement of protective factors, or any combination of
those. That is the primary difference between an exemplary program and
an effective program is in the outcomes.

For an exemplary program, if what you\'re going to show as the evidence
of your effectiveness is a program that used a quasi-experimental design
that didn\'t result in a reduction in use, and did not result in a
reduction in negative consequences from such use, but did reduce risk
factors and did enhance protective factors, that would automatically
bump you out of exemplary, but it would allow you to be considered for
effective. Because, again, that\'s the primary difference between the
two categories is in the outcomes.

Moving on to promising, there is a similar distinction and it primarily
comes down to the research designs. If you\'ve seen and had a chance to
read through the application package and the various definitions that
we\'ve established for exemplary, effective and promising, you will see
that for the outcomes for promising programs, they are the same as
potential outcomes for effective programs \-- reduction in use,
reduction in consequences, reduction in risk factors, enhancement of
protective factors, or any combination of those impacts.

The difference between a promising program and an effective program will
be in the research design. And in this particular case, what we have
established for a promising program, we have indicated that there is
still a strong theoretical base and you have evidence, using limited
research methods, that the program has these outcomes. We\'ve gone on to
identify what limited research methods are. And the lowest common
denominator or the \-- I should say the lowest, or at the least, type
research design we would want to see is a pre- and post-test, or pre-
and post-treatment measurement of the program, either on a single
subject or group of subjects.

So again, the difference primarily between a promising program and an
effective program is in the research design. And if you\'ve proposed a
program that has seen some outcomes in terms of reductions in use,
reductions in consequences, but the only research design that you\'ve
used and are able to show is a simple pre/post test, that is what will
put you into consideration for a promising program as opposed to an
effective program.

The other things that I want to mention before I open it up for
questions, because I know that\'s a lot to digest in terms of the
definitions, is some guidance for you as you\'re putting your proposals
together.

First of all, as an applicant, what you should not do is identify the
level for which you want recognition. We have indicated that very thing
in the Frequently Asked Questions section of the application package.
Your job as a potential applicant is to provide a comprehensive response
to all three selection criteria and their sub-elements.

We select an institution of higher ed for recognition as exemplary,
effective or promising based on the recommendation from the two
individuals who conduct the site visit. But

we also want to go on to say that, just because you receive a site
visit, that does not ensure recognition as an exemplary, effective or
promising program by the Department of Ed. It is very possible that the
team of two site visitors may come back and indicate that we do not
recommend this particular campus for being recognized at any of these
three levels, in which case we would not make the award, nor designate
you for a certain recognition level.

So, it is not up to you to specifically say in your application, \"We
are applying for promising program status,\" or, \"Our program should be
considered in the exemplary level of recognition.\" Simply provide a
comprehensive response to all three selection criteria, as well as their
respective sub-elements and let the designation naturally fall out from
not only the first stage review with the panel of three peer reviewers,
but more importantly with the duo of site visitors that may come to your
campus.

So, the last bit of guidance we give to folks on this particular piece
is that you really should focus on the exemplary and the effective parts
of these two levels of recognition. The only deviation I would say to
that is, going back to the limited research design, is again, if the
only research design or evaluation design that you have had in play for
your program is simple pre and post-tests, that will automatically bump
you down to promising status without the ability to bump up, just simply
because of the definition which indicates that you have evidence of
effectiveness but it\'s using limited research designs.

So again, don\'t identify the level for which you want recognition. Let
that fall out naturally during the peer review process. And primarily
for you, focus on providing a comprehensive response to all three
selection criteria.

So, at this time I will stop and take any questions that you may have.

Operator: Okay. Once again, if you do have a question or comment, please
press the one key at this time. Okay. I\'m showing one question at the
moment coming from Caller 4 from University of Pennsylvania.

Caller 4: Hi. This is actually Caller 4. We\'re in the room together
here. I had two questions, a bit basic, but I just wanted to be clear.
When we\'re talking about the exemplary program, you were saying that
the reductions need to be illustrated among college students. That would
be prevalence data. Would you be speaking to the entire population on
our campus, or just the target group that our program was targeted
towards?

Richard Lucey: The evidence of effectiveness is speaking directly to the
population of students that\'s targeted by the program.

Caller 4: Okay. So, the target population.

Richard Lucey: Um-hum

Caller 4: Great. And also \-- and again, this is pretty basic, but just
to be 100 percent clear\--.

Richard Lucey: \--That\'s okay\--.

Caller 4: \--If the reductions that we\'re showing, a reduction in
alcohol and other drug use, a reduction in negative consequences, also
reductions in risky behaviors and increases in

productive factors, that would still quality for exemplary if the other
criteria were also met.

Richard Lucey: Right.

Caller 4: Okay.

Richard Lucey: Yeah. The thing is, you would have to have at least the
reductions in use or the reduction in negative consequences to be
eligible for exemplary status. If the risk or protective factors come
into play and that \-- and you don\'t have the other two and you just
have reduction in risk factors or an enhancement of protective factors,
that bumps you out of exemplary and puts you on the path potentially for
being recognized as an effective program.

Caller 4: Fantastic. And the third and final is, is there a benchmark or
a standard of percentage in reduction that the \-- that you are looking
for?

Richard Lucey: No. We have not identified that, nor is it our place,
really, to identify that just because every campus is different, every
student population is different. And what might be statistically
significant for your campus wouldn\'t be necessarily for someone else.
So, we do allow our applicants to have the discretion in simply
identifying what they're stating is the evidence of effectiveness and,
in fact, why is it evidence of effectiveness and to clearly indicate
that in their proposals.

Caller 4: Fantastic. Thank you.

Richard Lucey: Um-hum.

Operator: Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a
question or comment, please press the one key at this time. I show no
further questions at the moment.

Richard Lucey: Okay. So now I\'ll move on to the requirements of this
year\'s competition. And the first has to do with the eligible
applicants. The only eligible applicants for the competition are
institutions of higher education that offer an associate\'s or
baccalaureate\'s degree. So therefore, a consortia could not apply. A
public or private non-profit organization could not apply. Nor could an
individual apply. The only entity that\'s eligible is an institution of
higher education that offers an associate or baccalaureate degree.

There are some limitations on eligibility that will come into play in
future iterations of this particular grant program, and I\'m briefly
going to review those for you because they have a bearing on the
potential applicants for this year.

We have established as one of the requirements a limitation on
eligibility that states that any program that we recognize this year as
having an exemplary or effective program will be ineligible for three
years to reapply. In the past there was a five-year prohibition of that
if we had recognized your campus as having a model program, and you were
prohibited from reapplying for a period of five years. We\'ve actually
reduced that to three years and it only applies to those that we
recognize as exemplary or effective.

That being said \-- and I\'m going to talk about promising in just a
moment \-- any campus that we recognized as having a model program in
fiscal years 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007 are eligible again for this year
to reapply. And the reason being is because we\'ve established now a
brand new program, three new levels of recognition that were never in

play before, and the limitations on eligibility that we\'ve established
will only apply to those programs that we recognize as a result of this
year\'s program forward. So again, for fiscal year 2008, for any
institution that we recognize as having an exemplary or an effective
program, will be ineligible to reapply for a period of three years.

For promising programs, it gets just a tad trickier. But I think if you
just follow through on what I\'m about to talk about, you should
understand it. And if not, certainly ask the question and I\'ll try my
best to rephrase it for you.

A promising program, as I indicated earlier on in today\'s conference
call, will be awarded a 12-month grant. Now, that means that their grant
period would be August 1st of this year through July 31st of 2009. For
those of you who have had a Department of Education grant in the past,
you know that there is the potential for a current grantee to extend
their project for a period of up to 12 months to finish incomplete
activities, otherwise known as a no-cost extension. That regulation is
still in play. And anybody that we award under this program will still
have that as an option for themselves.

But for a campus that we recognize as having a promising program, you
are ineligible to apply as long as your current grant is active. So,
let\'s just say for the sake of argument that we award you this year as
a promising program and you finish everything up that you are supposed
to complete by July 31st of 2009. The earliest you would be eligible to
reapply would be in 2010 simply because, by July of 2009, next year\'s
grant program will already have come and gone in terms of the
application deadline date. So, the earliest you\'d be able to apply is
the year after that.

If in the year 2010 you apply and you are once again designated as a
promising program, it is at that point that we will invoke the
three-year ineligibility rule and basically prohibit you from reapplying
for that time period.

So, in looking at the three levels of recognition once again, if you\'re
designated as exemplary or effective this year, you\'re ineligible for
three years after that from reapplying. And if you are designated this
year as having a promising program, you\'re allowed to submit another
application when your current grant expires. And if at that time you\'re
designated once again as promising, you then are prohibited from
reapplying for a period of three years. So, that\'s where we\'re looking
at in terms of the eligibility limitations.

The third and final requirement that I simply want to mention in terms
of something that\'s new for this particular year are the funding limits
that we\'ve established. This is the first time that we have set maximum
award amounts. And, in my opinion, they actually help out the campuses
in one regard because of the indirect cost issue. Specifically, we have
established for exemplary or effective programs a maximum award amount
of no more than \$150,000 plus indirect costs. So, that is not inclusive
of indirect costs. It\'s \$150,000 plus indirect costs. And for
promising programs, the maximum award amount is no more than \$100,000
plus indirect costs.

Let me just touch on a few nuances with these figures and then I\'ll get
ready to open it up for questions if you have any.

First of all, the difference between the two dollar amounts. If you are
designated as having a promising program and you proposed dissemination
activities in your budget proposal, which you should do because that
speaks directly to some of the selection criteria and their
sub-elements, we will strip all of that out of your proposed budget.

Because, for a promising program, during the 12-month period we will
want you to focus solely on the enhancement of your program and the
further evaluation of it with no dissemination activities to other
institutions of higher education.

For effective or exemplary programs, we certainly want to have that type
information disseminated to other institutions of higher education that
may be interested in adopting a similar approach on their particular
campuses. This is not to say that we think that your dissemination
efforts cost \$50,000. Because you may look and say, well, if they\'re
going to give promising programs \$50,000 less, then that means they
just might figure dissemination costs that much. That\'s not the case at
all. But the bottom line here is that, for a promising program, we will
indeed strip out all of the dissemination activities, as well as related
budget items from your budget so that you can focus solely on the
enhancement and evaluation part of your project.

As for the indirect costs, some guidance for you on this, which we do
explain in the Frequently Asked section \-- or Frequently Asked
Questions section of the proposal. If you claim indirect costs, you are
allowed to use your university\'s federally negotiated indirect cost
rate. However, some additional guidance on that is that, because these
are not research grants, like some universities may be used to with the
Department of Health and Human Services or the NIAAA or the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, we do not fund pure research grants and,
therefore, it is not appropriate for a campus to apply their federally
negotiated indirect cost rate for research on these projects. Rather, a
campus would use their federally negotiated indirect cost rate for what
is often referred to on the indirect cost rate agreement as \"other
sponsored activities.\"

So, my advice to you is, as you\'re putting your budget proposals
together and you get ready to submit proof of your federally negotiated
indirect cost rate with your proposal, is to take a look at the
agreement \-- which your business office or your fiscal folks should be
able to provide for you \-- and take a look at it and see if you see a
line on there that simply indicates on-campus, other sponsored
activities. That\'s the appropriate rate to use with this particular
project.

So again, when you\'re putting your proposals together, you do not need
to worry about the \$150,000 being inclusive of indirect costs. It\'s
\$150,000 for exemplary or effective programs plus indirect costs. It\'s
\$100,000 maximum award for promising programs, but it\'s \$100,000 plus
indirect costs.

So, at this point I\'ll stop there since I\'ve covered the requirements.
And before we get into the selection criteria, let me open it up for any
questions that you might have on any of those three requirements that I
just discussed.

Operator: Okay. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a
question or comment, please press the one key at this time. And I\'m
showing one question coming from Caller 5 from Montclair State
University.

Caller 5: Hi, Rich. I was just wondering, is there any restriction if a
campus is presently implementing a program with Department of Ed funds?

Richard Lucey: Do you want to clarify that a bit more?

Caller 5: If we are \-- if a campus already has a funded program\--.

Richard Lucey: \--Um-hum\--.

Caller 5: \--Presently\--.

Richard Lucey: \--Right\--.

Caller 5: \--Are they also able to then apply for a model program?

Richard Lucey: Yes. First of all, our grant competitions, the various 8
to 12 that we may have in each different year, are distinct and separate
and apart from each other. We sometimes have a provision in our grant
programs that a current or active grantee under that program is not
eligible to apply. That is not the case for this year\'s campus-based
models program because of the nature of the fact that we\'ve established
these three new levels of recognition.

For example, Caller 5, I think specifically with your campus you were
recognized in fiscal year 2006, I believe. And typically, you would have
been ineligible to apply for five years from that point. We have done
away with that five-year ban. So, for this year, you are eligible to
apply if you wish. And if we recognize you as effective or exemplary
this year, you\'d be ineligible for a period of three years.

Operator: Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from Caller 6 from
University of Tennessee.

Caller 6: Hello, Richard. How you doing?

Richard Lucey: Hey, Caller 6.

Caller 6: I just want a little bit of clarification from some of the
things that you mentioned today.

Richard Lucey: Um-hum.

Caller 6: If your current program fits under the category of limited
research design\--.

Richard Lucey: \--Um-hum\--.

Caller 6: \--And with \-- at a minimum pre/post, the way you kind of
described the different levels, would you make it clear in your
evaluation section that you\'re doing an experimental design or a
quasi-experimental design for this particular proposal?

Richard Lucey: Well, it\'s up to you as the applicant to certainly make
it very clear in your project evaluation section the research design or
the methods of evaluation that you use to determine the evidence of the
effectiveness of your program so that the reviewers have something on
which they can base their scores and comments.

Caller 6: Okay. And maybe we don\'t have time for this today, but if you
could answer it quickly, that would be helpful.

Richard Lucey: Um-hum.

Caller 6: If you\'re looking at some sort of a population level
intervention on your campus, from what we\'ve previously described,
would that necessitate having a control campus also?

Richard Lucey: It\'s solely going to be based \-- and that\'s not
anything that I would answer, even off line, just because I\'m
prohibited from talking about a specific approach or design that you\'ve
used.

Caller 6: Okay.

Richard Lucey: That\'s certainly up to the peer reviewers to decide.
But, in terms of the \-- you know, what I would call the nutshell
version of the definition is, you know, the experimental design is
random assignment, treatment group, control group. Whereas, the
quasi-experimental design would, say, be a comparison group which was
not randomly assigned.

Caller 6: Okay.

Richard Lucey: So, it\'s up to you. Again, in the project evaluation
section you\'re not only talking about the evidence of the effectiveness
of the program, but that sub-element B, which we\'ll talk about in just
a little bit, talks about what were the methods of evaluation that were
used to determine this evidence of effectiveness. So, it\'ll be up to
the peer reviewers to determine whether or not \-- you know, how well
you responded to that. Ultimately, it\'s the site visitors, not the
first stage reviewers, who are making the recommendation to the
Department as to which level, if any, we should recognize you for.
They\'ll determine that based on what they learn during the on-campus
visit.

Caller 6: Okay, great. Thank you very much, Richard.

Richard Lucey: Sure.

Operator: I am showing no further questions.

Richard Lucey: Okay. So, before we get into the proposal tips and the
overview of the peer review process, I do now want to finish out the
content-specific portion of the grant program for this year with a
discussion of the selection criteria.

And this is where I would want to make clear that \-- and it goes back
to my earlier statement that you are not writing your proposal as if
it\'s exemplary or effective or promising. And by that, I mean you\'re
not self-identifying the level of recognition that you\'re competing
for. Your job, if that\'s what we want to call it, or your goal in
putting a proposal together, whether it\'s this program or any other
grant program, is to provide a comprehensive response to all of the
sub-elements that are listed for the selection criteria. These are the
elements that the peer reviewers will be assessing you against in terms
of your response.

So, you don\'t want to give short-shrift or to ignore any of them
because doing so puts you at a distinct disadvantage. And there\'s no
easier way to lose points and be knocked out of the competition by
basically ignoring or omitting or forgetting to include, or any other
thing you want to come up with, that means you did not address all of
the elements. So, I\'m going to review for you quickly the instructions
that we\'ll be giving to peer reviewers in terms of what they should be
looking for as it relates to your responses to the criteria.

There are three selection criteria. They are worth a total of 100
points. Significance is the first criterion. It\'s worth 20 points.
Project design is worth 40 points, and it\'s the second selection
criterion. And project evaluation also is worth 40 points, and it\'s the
third criterion. And I\'m going to review each of the sub-elements for
you now, starting with significance.

In the application package you will see that we have weighted each of
the sub-elements in terms of a point value. So, significance is worth a
total of 20 points. Sub-element A is worth 15, sub-element B is worth 5.

In your response to significance, here is where you\'re providing the
detailed description of your program that\'s been implemented on your
campus for at least two full years. This is another way of addressing
one of the four elements in that absolute priority. So we \-- you will
see that we\'ve established those four elements in the priority.
Hopefully, you will see how each of those play out and get discussed in
your responses to these three selection criteria.

That sub-element A is the contribution of the program to the advancement
of theory and knowledge to the field at large. What is the significance
of this program being recognized as exemplary, effective or promising
for the field? And that\'s where you\'re providing this detailed
description of this program that\'s been in existence for at least two
years so that the peer reviewers can take a look at this and understand
how long it\'s been in play, what it encompasses, who it targets, what
are the various components of it. Is it a multi-pronged approach? Is it
a single method approach? That\'s all up to you to discuss and provide a
description of in a very clear and concise way.

The second element under significance talks about the dissemination
plan. Here you are to indicate a comprehensive dissemination plan that
would allow you to get information to other institutions of higher
education about your program, provide them with information on how it
could be used on their campus, and develop materials that others could
use if they wanted to create a similar program.

Some of the more common forms of dissemination that we also have
included in this application package are articles for publications. That
could include newsletters. That could include peer-reviewed journal
articles. Dissemination could include providing consultations, either
having folks come to your campus or you going to other campuses
interested in learning more about your program. Hosting a conference
specifically about your project. Creating websites about your project,
and that\'s another form of dissemination. We leave that completely up
to you and your discretion as to how you want to propose disseminating
information about your program to others. But, it\'s up to you to fully
flesh that out and to describe it in a way that makes it clear to the
reviewers how this will be disseminated to others who may be interested
in adopting it on their particular campus.

So again, you have two sub-elements that you need to address. One is
certainly weighted much more than the other. That is worth 15 points,
and that\'s the full and complete description of your program that\'s
been in place for at least two years. The second element has to do more
with the dissemination plan. How are you planning to notify others about
your program if they are interested in adopting a similar effort at
their institution?

The second selection criterion speaks to the project design. There are
three sub-elements. They total 40 points. The first sub-element has to
do with the current program. How does it reflect up to date knowledge
from research and practice? This is the theoretical base that we saw in
all three definitions of the levels of recognition. So, you\'re
explaining how does this program that we\'ve had in place reflect
current research, current practice, what the literature is telling us
about what works. That\'s what the reviewers will

be looking for in a clear way that you\'ve explained to them about the
particular program that you\'ve written about in your proposal.

The second element has to do with the enhancement piece. You \-- as part
of this grant program, one of the things we\'ve not lost is for all
grantees that we fund to enhance their existing program and to further
evaluate it. Well, in your proposal, you\'re providing that proposed
enhancement piece as well. But, that proposed enhancement also needs to
reflect up to date knowledge from research and practice.

Let me just give you an example, and this is completely a hypothetical.
But let\'s say that you\'ve implemented a social norms program on your
campus that has been in place for at least two years and it has solely
targeted members of the Greek community. Your fraternity members and
your members of sororities. And let\'s say that you\'ve discussed that
in a comprehensive manner in your proposal, but \-- and you have
evidence to show that it\'s effective. But what you want to do is
enhance the program and further evaluate it, which is a requirement. We
leave that up to you to decide what enhancement means. But for the
purposes of this example, the enhancement might mean let\'s now develop
a social norms campaign because we know it works with our Greeks
population. Let\'s develop a campaign that now targets our student
athletes. So, the enhancement could be simply a new student population.
That\'s fine.

Again, it\'s completely up to you to determine what\'s the enhancement.
The onus and burden is on you to explain what\'s your proposed
enhancement plan, how do you plan to further evaluate it, but more
importantly for this element, how does that enhancement also reflect
current knowledge from research and effective practice?

The third element under project design also speaks to the enhancement
piece. And what the reviewers will be looking for is the goals and the
objectives and the outcomes you\'ve identified that will be achieved by
the program enhancement. Are they clearly specified and are they
measurable? We would hope and expect that the existing program has
already determined and had clearly identified goals and objectives.
Well, as you know, as part of this program you have to enhance and
further evaluate that program. What the reviewers will look for are
clear, specific and measurable goals and objectives and outcomes for
that enhancement piece.

For any of you that may have had one of our grants, say under the
competition to prevent high-risk drinking or violent behavior among
college students, know that one of the sub-elements there under the
criterion quality of the project design speaks to this very issue. What
is it you hope to see as a result of this program at the end of a
specific period of time? So, you\'re going to already have in your mind
18 months, because that\'s the project period for an exemplary or an
effective program. What are the goals and objectives that you want to
see at the end of 18 months as a result of the enhancement to your
existing program?

The final selection criterion is project evaluation. It also is worth 40
points. And the three sub-elements are weighted at 25, 10 and 5 points,
and I\'ll briefly touch on each of them.

The first sub-element has to do specifically with the evaluation data of
the program that\'s been in place for at least two full years. Again,
direct correlation to one of the sub-elements or elements, I should say,
of the absolute priority. It is in your response to this criterion the
reviewers are going to look for the specific evidence of the
effectiveness of

your program. They\'re going to look for a complete and comprehensive
explanation of the data that serve as the indication of your program\'s
effectiveness.

You\'ll note in this sub-element that it\'s an omnibus or a
comprehensive element in that it talks about all of the various outcome
data. And by that, I mean reductions in use, reductions in problems,
reductions in risk factors, enhancement of protective factors, or some
combination of them. It is an omnibus sub-element in that it could be
any or all of those elements. You tie those directly back to those
definitions we talked about earlier and, depending on the outcomes that
you\'ve had as evidence of the effectiveness of your program, that will
help to determine which level of recognition that may \-- you may be
designated for based on how well the peer reviewers felt that you
responded to the criterion and, ultimately, a recommendation that comes
back to us from the site visit team if your campus is visited.

So, sub-element A, here is where you talk about the effectiveness of the
program. Please do not be vague and non-specific here. You want to be
very specific, very concise and very clear and identify, not only for
us, but ultimately for the reviewers, what is the specific evidence that
you have to show that your program\'s effective.

The second element under project evaluation talks about the methods of
evaluation. So, going back to the question that Caller 6 had posed
earlier, again, it\'s up to you to clearly identify the methods by which
you used to evaluate and ultimately document the evidence of this
particular program. Is it solely based on pre and post-tests? Did you
employ some type of experimental design where there was a random
assignment of treatment and control groups? Or was there a
quasi-experimental design in play in which case you had comparison
groups that were not randomly assigned? It is all on you. Again, the
burden is always with the applicant to basically explain all of that in
laymen\'s terms, in a concise and clear way so that the peer reviewers
can make a determination. And ultimately, the site visitors, if you get
to that point, can see how you arrived at your data.

The last element under project evaluation goes back to the enhancement
piece. If you basically think about what it is you want to do over the
course of the next 18 months \-- we\'ll just continue along with this
hypothetical example of an effective or an exemplary program. \"At the
end of 18 months, I hope to see these goals, objectives and outcomes,
but how am I going to know whether or not I met them?\" What methods of
evaluation are you planning to put into play during the enhancement
phase that will give you some performance feedback and allow you to
periodically assess your progress toward meeting those intended
outcomes?

So, that\'s the third and final sub-element that the peer reviewers are
going to be looking for within this particular element. You\'ll see that
it\'s only worth five points, but please do not look at that as an
indication that we do not think it\'s worth much in comparison to the
other two. The real thrust behind this grant program admittedly is for
us to identify effective, exemplary and promising programs. And the way
that we do that is through the evidence of the effectiveness and through
the methods by which you determined that. But there is that component of
the enhancement piece. We do want to see that you have a plan in play to
periodically assess how well you\'re progressing toward those intended
outcomes.

So with that, I will now open it up for any questions that you might
have related to the three selection criteria.

Operator: Okay. Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do
have a question, please press the one key at this time. Okay. I show one
question coming from Caller 7 from Sangre de Cristo.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Caller 7: Hi, Rich.

Richard Lucey: Hello.

Caller 7: This is Caller 7 from Sangre de Cristo and Highlands
University. One question that I do have, typically most grants, they
limit the number of pages you can submit. Is there any type of
limitation? I have not seen anything on this grant.

Richard Lucey: Yes. Actually, if you look in section four of the
application package.

Caller 7: Okay.

Richard Lucey: And in one of the areas that we talk about \-- it\'s
actually on page \-- it\'s on the first page of section four. We had \--
just trying to see if we actually listed it here or if it was another
part of the application narrative. I'm sorry; it\'s actually under the
\"Organizing the Application\" section. It\'s still in that section
four. But, if you look at item three, Project Narrative, we indicate
that it should be no more than 25 double-spaced pages. So, you\'ll have
your abstract, which is just the one page brief overview of what\'s in
your proposal, but then the project narrative, your response to those
three criterion and all of the respective sub-elements should be no more
than 25 double-spaced typed pages.

Caller 7: Okay.

Richard Lucey: Do you see that in the\--?

Caller 7: \--Yes, sir, I do.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Caller 7: Thank you.

Richard Lucey: Sure.

Operator: Okay. I show one more question at this time coming from Caller
8 from the University of Nebraska.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Caller 8: Yeah. I just \-- my question on the, you know, criteria for,
you know, what counts as evidence is, if you did a campus-wide
intervention, what would you have for any type of control or comparison
group?

Richard Lucey: Caller 8, unfortunately, that\'s not really for me to
say. Again, that\'s getting into campus-specific information and project
designs and I\'m not allowed to comment specifically on that. What we
indicate or provide as guidance to the applicants \-- and admittedly, it
may basically bump people out of a specific level of recognition. But,
depending on the project or the program you have in place, whether it\'s
a full-blown comprehensive

program or whether it\'s a specific strategy that you\'re calling a
program, that certainly \-- you know, if it\'s a component of a
comprehensive program, it\'s up to you to decide basically what\'s the
evaluation method you\'ve used to indicate that it\'s evidence of
effectiveness.

For a comprehensive campus-wide program, you know, it would be up to the
campus, I guess, if it were looking at an experimental design or
quasi-experimental design, to come up with a campus of another type, of
a similar type of scope, if you will, that could serve as a control
group. But, that\'s certainly up to the campus to decide. It\'s not
something that we would dictate. But certainly, through the definition
itself and what we have identified, it may result in that, you know, a
campus may have to determine what are they going to use or indicate as
the research method that was evidence of the program\'s effectiveness. I
can\'t, because every campus is different, indicate which one we
recommend or which one we say is preferable.

We\'ll leave it up to \-- as long as the applicant has clearly addressed
all of the elements of the priority and comprehensively addressed \--
well, let me back up. As long as they clearly address all four elements
of the priority in their application, we\'ll assign it to the peer
review panel. We\'ll let them decide how well you responded to each of
the selection criteria. And inclusive in that is the project evaluation
piece. It\'s up to them to decide how well you explained the methods of
evaluation and whether or not, you know, an experimental design was in
place or experimental \-- a quasi-experimental, or however you\'ve laid
it out, it\'s up to them to decide how well you responded to that
particular sub-element.

Caller 8: Yeah. But am I to interpret that correctly that only
experimental designs are acceptable, or quasi-experimental?

Richard Lucey: For an exemplary or an effective program, yes. If you
look at the definitions, you will see that we have specifically said
that highest research design is the operative word or phrase. And we\'ve
gone on to say that that means an experimental design that involves
random assignment, control group, treatment group, but we have allowed
for quasi-experimental designs in both exemplary and effective. It\'s
certainly up to the applicant to decide or to explain how it\'s one or
the other. It\'s in the limited research designs where we move down into
promising. And that\'s where they have, at the least, a pre and
post-test that\'s been in play.

Operator: Thank you. I\'m showing one more question now coming from
Caller 9 from Mexico Highlands.

Caller 9: Hello. My question is in relationship to the display of tables
and graphs.

Richard Lucey: Okay.

Caller 9: Can those be \-- do those \-- are those required to be
double-spaced as well\--?

Richard Lucey: \--No. And in fact, that was one of the things that I\'m
going to discuss shortly\--.

Caller 9: \--Okay\--.

Richard Lucey: \--In the grant proposal organization tips. But since
you\'ve asked it here, I\'ll mention it. We certainly will allow an
applicant in a displaying of a graph or a chart or a table in their
application package, their proposal to us, they can use single-spaced
text in those

charts or those tables. But, we always put the caveat out there, and I
explain this during the grants workshop sessions that I do, do not put
large blocks of text or your direct responses to the criteria as
single-spaced responses and just put a border around it and call it a
table. We actually have had applicants do that in the past and they\'ve
tried to challenge us and say that that\'s a chart or a table, when
it\'s clear that they\'re \-- it was intended to be a response to a
selection criteria. They were just trying to get more information in by
circumventing the double-spaced rule. That\'s the only caveat we give to
people. But, if you\'re simply putting together a chart that shows
prevalence rates or outcome data, or those types of charts, graphs or
tables, you certainly can single space those.

Cecilia Navarrete: Thank you very much.

Operator: There are no further questions.

Richard Lucey: Okay. I\'m going to move into now some grant proposal
tips for you. These tips are based on not only my own experiences as a
successful and an unsuccessful applicant before I came to the Department
eight and a half years ago, but also the experiences of my colleagues,
as well as your colleagues from around the field that have developed
proposals and submitted them to the Department. And after I go through
these next set of tips, I\'ll open it up for any other questions that
you might have.

The first tip that we have is obviously to allow yourself plenty of time
to prepare. Now, the application just came out this past Friday. And in
fact, the Notice of Proposed Priority has been out since the end of
December of 2007. For those of you who are aware of that and have
started to formulate in your mind what you might be thinking about in
putting a proposal together, you\'re already giving yourself plenty of
time to prepare. And you also are doing so just by virtue of being on
the call this afternoon. So, that\'s a good thing.

We basically are giving folks 45 days from the time we released the
application to the public to the date that they have to transmit their
application to the Department. You know, I also know that 45 days seems
like a short amount of time. And you know, it\'s all just a matter of
time management. Certainly, we\'re required to give potential applicants
30 days. In some rare instances we will give applicants 60 days for a
grant program. But the vast majority of our grant programs, at least in
the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, are at the 45-day limit. And
so, that\'s what you\'ll see with this particular grant program.

So, the first tip that we would certainly give you is to allow yourself
plenty of time to prepare because trying to put the application together
for the first time just a couple of weeks before the deadline is
certainly not advisable.

The next tip that I would give you is to read the application package in
its entirety. The application came out this past Friday. Hopefully,
you\'ve had a chance to download it. My advice to all of you on this
call, as well as any other potential applicant that contacts us, is that
you\'re going to read the application in its entirety at least a minimum
of three times. The first time you should read the application solely
for the sake of reading it and getting its full context and what the
Department is doing and the direction in which they\'re heading. You
shouldn\'t be trying to write the proposal just on your first read of
the application.

The second time you read the application I would advise you to get your
laptop or desktop or else a notepad nearby and start jotting notes to
yourself about questions you either have for me or questions you have
for others on your campus about particular things. These are just simple
notes to yourself as you\'re reading through the application a second
time of things you know you want to follow up on.

The third time you\'re reading through the application, now you\'re
ready to start actually probably putting the pieces together. Whether
you\'re assigning out sections of the application to others to write, or
if you\'re going to be the sole author, starting to jot those things
down to yourself that you know you need to or want to include in certain
sections of the proposal.

So, a minimum of three times in reading the application in its entirety
is certainly advisable.

Follow the formatting guidelines. That goes back to the question that we
just had about the number of pages and how it should be formatted and
how it should look. This is all included in section four of the
application package. We do indicate that all of the applicants should
adhere to a specific set of formatting guidelines. One-inch margins, 8.5
by 11 paper. Your font type is to be no smaller than 12-point type
throughout your document. You can use boldface type, you can use
underlining, you can use italics and all that other fun stuff to draw
the eye to the type, but do not use colored text. It\'s not going to
show up on the prints that we make here because we will not print out
your proposals on the color printers. So, simply go with the black ink
on the white paper is best.

The other thing that we \-- tip that we give folks in terms of following
the formatting guidelines has to do with structuring your narrative
according to the criteria. I indicated that the three selection criteria
are significance, project design and project evaluation. And there are
various sub-elements to each of those selection criteria.

You really want to make it easy for the reviewer to evaluate your
proposal. And as such, you want the reviewer essentially to be your
friend. You want them on your side. Because, as I said, I know it\'s a
lot of time and effort and energy that goes into putting this proposal
together. You\'re \-- we\'re trying to create a level playing field for
everyone. That is one of the goals of our competition, is the same rule
applies to everyone. But, you are in competition with each other. And
one of the ways you\'d try to gain a competitive advantage is to point
out easily for the reviewers where your responses are to each of the
criteria.

One of the pieces of advice that we have for our potential applicants is
to use headings. So for example, you can have a major heading of
Significance, since that\'s one of the selection criteria, and then use
two smaller headings that deal with the two sub-elements under
Significance. But, provide your direct response to each of those
sub-elements clearly in the proposal so that the peer reviewers have \--
do not have to go on a fishing expedition, if you will, or have to start
hunting for where your response is. You want to make it crystal clear to
them how you responded to sub-element A under Project Design, or
sub-element C under Project Evaluation.

The other nice thing about this is, not only does it make it very clear
to the reviewers where your responses are, but those headings, the
inclusion of them in your proposal does not count against the page
limitation that I just mentioned earlier. So, it really is to your

advantage to include that type of information so the reviewers can
easily find your responses to those selection criteria.

The next piece of advice that we have for our potential applicants is to
be clear, be concise, and be specific. A vague and non-specific
application rarely, if ever, gets funded. The reviewers are going to be
looking for clearly identified, clearly specified and clearly measurable
goals, objectives and outcomes. They want to see clearly what your
program consists of, what are its components, when was it first
implemented so we can measure that two year piece. These are the types
of things, again, that really go a long way to getting a decent score on
an application is for you to be very clear and specific, and also to
format it in a way that makes it easy for the reviewers to read your
proposal.

The next thing that I want to mention has to do with your funding
request. In addition to the project narrative that you put together,
which is your response to the three selection criteria, you also will be
required to submit a budget narrative. One of the required forms is Ed
Form 524. It\'s the Budget Information form. This is simply a one-page
form that you use to list by budget category the funding items or the
budget requests that you have for this project.

In addition to that form, and to accompany it, is a budget narrative
that fully justifies and explains all of the proposed costs. It will not
be sufficient for you to simply provide the Ed Form 524 and then attach
a one-page spreadsheet that simply shows the same figures that are on
the 524. What we are going to want to see primarily is, not only how you
calculated those costs, but also how they relate directly to the project
narrative that you\'ve included. How do these costs relate to your
program or to your project if it\'s funded for 12 to 18 months?

One of the things that I tell folks, as an example, would be in the
supplies category. Do not simply put \$10,000 for miscellaneous
expenses. There\'s no surer way to get that cut out of your budget than
to be as vague and non-specific as that. I bring it up as an example
because we have had applicants, in this program and others, indicate
such a line item.

I\'ll give you another example. Under travel, for example, you\'ll
notice that we instruct our potential applicants that one of the things
they have to budget for is attendance at our annual national meeting
that\'s held each fall. What I would want to see in your budget request
or your budget narrative is how you calculated the costs that will get
your team, whether it\'s you and a project coordinator, or you and a
team of folks from your campus, from your home base to our national
meeting. And that includes airfare, lodging, per diem expenses, all of
that. So, make sure you fully explain that in your budget narrative.

You want to make sure that your budget figures are consistent. Look at
what you\'ve included on the Ed Form 524 and make sure that those
numbers match exactly what you have in your budget narrative.

The other thing you need to keep in mind as you\'re putting your
proposals together is that your costs that you propose to us have to be
reasonable, necessary and allowable under the program. So, I\'ll give
you an example of an unallowable expense. And this will speak directly
to folks who maybe have social norms programs. I won\'t debate the need,
if you will, or the benefit for having social norms messages on a
variety of objects such as stress balls, magnets, water bottles, key
chains, mouse pads, those types of objects. But those are items for
which we will not allow you to spend the federal tax dollars basically
through this grant program.

We will allow you to use, if you have a social norms program for
instance, we\'ll allow you to use your grant dollars mainly around print
media issues, such as posters, brochures. Some folks have gone the route
of billboards. Certainly MySpace and FaceBook are popular avenues of
disseminating information. And that is an allowable expense if you want
to promote the program through those venues. We have had grantees
develop academic planners for their students. And they\'ve included
social norms messages on those. That\'s all well and good. But, keep in
mind the trinket or tchotchke or what you would consider sometimes fluff
type material like key chains and magnets and stress balls and water
bottles and all of those things, we will not allow you to use the grant
funds to produce those particular products.

So, keep that in mind as you\'re putting your proposals together.
Certainly offline, if you have specific items that you want to run by me
as possibly whether or not they\'re allowable, I can answer those on an
individual basis with you. We do not have an all inclusive list of
allowable and unallowable items just because it would be hard to develop
such a list. But, I did want to use that one as an example of something
that we would not allow.

The primary thing for you to keep in mind as you\'re putting your
proposals together for your budgets is be able to explain in your budget
narrative that it\'s a reasonable cost and why it\'s a necessary cost.
We\'ll make that determination, and also take into account the
allowability factor. But, be clear and be as specific in your budget
proposal as you should be in your project narrative.

Another tip that we give all of our potential applicants is to proofread
your proposal. You will have looked at this thing so many times over the
course of the next several weeks that you will think that you will have
seen things, or you will think that you will have read something or you
will have included something in your proposal. But, just by the mere
fact that you\'ve become very close to it and be the principal author or
primary author on it, you will miss things. It is just part of our
natural inclination to just have our mind think we saw something and to
gloss over something.

So, our advice is to really have a fresh pair of eyes look at your
proposal and read it prior to submitting it. Whether you want to give it
to your colleague in your office, to a work study student, bring it home
and give it to your spouse or significant other. Truly, as a tip for
this particular piece. And have that person look at it not only for
spelling and potential grammar issues, but also for clarity\'s sake.

You really want to write the proposal for a layperson. You\'re writing
this for someone who knows nothing about your program, even though the
peer reviewers are trained in all the intricacies about this particular
grant program, they\'re not allowed to fill in any holes for you or to
give you any benefits of the doubt or anything like that. You need to be
very clear in your proposal, but write it for someone as if someone
knows nothing about your proposal.

The last couple of tips that I want to give you have to do with either
electronic submission or paper submission. And it\'s \-- these two
pieces are very important depending on how you decide to submit your
proposal. And that\'s why I save them for last because, oftentimes,
people remember the last thing that you say.

I mentioned earlier at the top of our conference call that you are
allowed to submit your proposal electronically if you wish. If you do,
you must go through grants.gov, which is

the federal government\'s portal now for all of its grants. You also, if
you want, can submit it in paper format instead. And you can do that
either by mail or deliver in person.

I\'m going to talk first about signatures and how that plays out
depending on how you submit your proposal. If you submit your proposal
electronically through grants.gov, all of the forms will be
electronically signed at the time of submission. And we accept that
electronic signature. We may come back to you at a point in the future
to ask for actual pen and ink signatures on the forms from your
authorized rep. But at least in terms of the time of submission, we do
allow the grants.gov system to serve as your electronic signatory.

If you\'re submitting your proposal in paper format, either by mail or
by hand, you must \-- that is your authorized representative \-- must
physically sign the proposals and all of the different forms.

An example that just came up this past couple of grant rounds. We had a
person on a required form submit a form that simply used a cursive font
type and called that a signature. It was initially ruled ineligible
because it was not a signed required form as part of that particular
grant program. The applicant appealed our decision and we took a second
look and we did uphold our initial decision that that was not an
original signature that was done by someone\'s own hand. It was simply a
change in font type. So, please do not go that route if it\'s something
you\'re considering. I would hope it is not. If you\'re going to submit
in paper format, you actually have to have the forms signed.

The other thing that I want to mention has to do with the deadline. And
this is critical information. The deadline, as I mentioned, is May 19th
of 2008. If you submit your proposal electronically via grants.gov, your
proposal has to be fully submitted. That does not mean in the middle of.
That does not mean finishing up. That means fully uploaded and fully
submitted by 4:30:00 P.M. Eastern Time on May 19th. The reason that
I\'ve added on the 00s to the 4:30 P.M. Eastern Time is that we have
determined that 4:30 P.M. means on the dot. It does not mean one second
late. If that happens, then your application will indeed be considered
late and it will be ruled ineligible. So, based on experiences that
we\'ve had over the last year or so around confusion over that
particular piece, for this year we have included the seconds as part of
the deadline time by which the application has to be fully submitted via
grants.gov.

If you submit your application in paper format by hand, whether you
personally deliver your proposal or you hire a courier in the metro
Washington DC area to do that for you, the application control center
for the Department of Education will accept a hand-delivered proposal up
until 4:30 P.M. Eastern Time on May 19th.

If you\'re going to submit your proposal in paper format by mail,
whether that\'s through the U.S. Postal Service or through a commercial
carrier like FedEx, DHL, UPS, whatever your commercial carrier of choice
is, we will accept a postmark date. So in other words, if you happen to
be located in an area where you have a post office that\'s open later
hours \-- I know that we have the luxury here in Washington DC of having
a post office or two that\'s open until midnight. You basically have \--
if you have that luxury of getting your proposal to them prior to
midnight, but as long as it\'s postmarked by May 19th of 2008, it will
be accepted.

If you\'re going to use an overnight carrier, like FedEx or UPS or any
of those others, the shipping label needs to show a date that\'s no
later than May 19th, 2008. If you\'re going to go that route, certainly
hold on to your shipping label and track your package. On the

off chance \-- and I do mean that it\'s an off chance \-- it is the
exception rather than the rule \-- that your proposal gets lost in
transit, you want to be able to prove to the Department of Ed, if asked,
that you shipped out your proposal on or before the deadline. And having
that tracking information certainly will go a long way toward providing
that proof.

So again, there are a couple of intricacies with electronic applications
and paper applications in terms of signatures. Electronic signature\'s
okay in grants.gov. Actual signatures are required in paper format. And
then, in terms of the deadline, applications must be fully submitted no
later than 4:30 P.M., that\'s 4:30:00 P.M. Eastern Time on May 19th. The
same is true for a hand-delivered application in paper format directly
to the Department of Ed\'s application control center. If you\'re going
to do paper format by mail or a commercial carrier, we will accept a
postmarked date.

If you have any questions about any of the requirements or any pieces of
the grant program, the advice is to contact the competition manager. And
as I indicated, in this particular case that would be me. You have my
email address. You have my phone number. I pride myself on being able to
respond back to people in a timely manner because I know that time is of
the essence for you as you\'re putting your proposals together.

Do not rely necessarily on the expertise of your colleagues or
information they give you. If you\'re questioning something about the
proposal, the example I always use in the grants workshop that I do is
from several years ago when I had a potential applicant call me and
wanted to discuss the proposal that she was putting together for her
particular \-- the grant program that I was running. And she wanted to
ask me some questions about the proposal and I had to stop her short
because my first question to her was why she was still working on it
when it was due two weeks earlier. And she had been given some
misinformation in a coalition meeting from someone \-- one of her
colleagues at another organization had told her that the Department of
Ed had extended the program\'s deadline date by two weeks.

And I always say in the grants workshop that I don\'t try to second
guess that person\'s motives, but it was a hard lesson for that person
to learn, that \-- to not rely on that kind of information without
following up and getting the information directly from the Department of
Ed, and specifically the person who\'s in charge of the competition.

So, our last piece is going to be an overview of the peer review
process. But before I get to that, let me just open it up to any
questions that you might have regarding the tips I just discussed, or
any of the nuances within those tips.

Operator: Okay. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a
question please press the one key at this time. And I show a couple
questions, the first coming from Caller 10 from Finger Lakes Community
College.

Richard Lucey: Hi, Caller 10.

Caller 10: Hi, Rich. Yes, I\'m calling to ask if the budget narrative is
counted as part of the 25-page limit.

Richard Lucey: No, it is not.

Caller 10: And can texts or curriculum materials be purchased for review
as part of the budget?

Richard Lucey: Give me a specific example or a hypothetical and I
probably can answer that better for you.

Caller 10: A hypothetical would be a curriculum material that claims to
have a social norm component \[unintelligible\] in its base model
program that could potentially be applied to a community college with
grant funds, can that material be purchased for review?

Richard Lucey: So, let\'s say for an example as part of your budget, or
as part of your project narrative, as I indicated earlier, you have to
have a proposed enhancement piece\--.

Caller 10: \--Correct\--.

Richard Lucey: \--To your project. And if maybe as part of your
enhancement you want to purchase materials to look at maybe their
applicability to your type of institution, that would be allowable.

Caller 10: Thank you.

Richard Lucey: Um-hum

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Caller 11 from
University of Houston.

Richard Lucey: Hi, Caller 11.

Gaylyn Maurer: Hi, again. I just had a question about the page limit as
well. We\'ve been looking at the theoretical basis. And clearly, our
reference list is growing and growing and growing. And I\'m wondering if
we can put items like that in the appendix?

Richard Lucey: Sure. I always tell potential applicants that if you\'re
going to have, for example a citations page or an endnotes page or a
references page, whatever you want to call it, you can go one of two
routes. You can go with, you know, your traditional footnotes and have
them included directly within your proposal, or you could have endnotes
and include the endnotes as part of an appendix. That certainly would be
acceptable as well.

Caller 11: And would that apply for a timeline as well?

Richard Lucey: Sure. The thing you need to be careful about, though, is
not putting too much stuff in the appendices. The tangential information
is certainly okay for an appendix. The guidance that we give to
applicants is to not include something in the appendix if it directly
relates to a response to the selection criteria. So for example, I would
not say in the project evaluation section that talks about your methods
of evaluation, I would not do a one paragraph thing that says, \"We have
evaluated this program through a quasi-experimental design. And for a
full explanation of it, see Appendix G.\"

Caller 11: Oh, sure.

Richard Lucey: I would never \-- but some applicants have in the past.
And there \-- our peer reviewers are under no requirement to look at
what\'s in your appendices. So, you\'re really at a disadvantage for
something like that. But, if you have like a management or a timeline
chart or a deliverables chart or those kinds of things and you want to
make reference to them in your project narrative and then direct folks
for further information to look in the appendix for more information,
that\'s okay. It\'s just to walk that line between what\'s

substantive and should be directly in the project narrative versus
something that\'s cursory or tangential that really is \-- can just go
in the appendix.

Caller 11: Great. Thank you.

Richard Lucey: Sure.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question at this time comes from Caller
12 from University of Minnesota.

Richard Lucey: Hi, Caller 12.

Caller 12: Hi, Rich. I just wanted to make sure of the dates for the
application. And also, for the last two years now we had a grant that
ended in 2005, so are we still eligible to apply for this grant?

Richard Lucey: Sure. Of course, again, the burden is on you as the
applicant to describe a current program that\'s in place, that\'s been
in place for at least two full years. It doesn't matter whether or not
it was a Department of Ed funded program. But, you have to have \-- what
you\'re basically saying to the Department is we have a current program
that\'s been in place for at least two full years that we want to have
considered by the Department as being an exemplary, effective or
promising program.

Caller 12: Okay, thanks. That\'s good.

Richard Lucey: Okay?

Caller 12: Yep.

Operator: Thank you. I show no following questions.

Richard Lucey: Okay. The final piece that I have, then, is a brief
overview of the peer review process, just to take a little bit of the
mystery away about that particular process, and explain to you what
happens when your application ultimately is submitted to the Department.

So first of all, why peer review? It directly states in the Department
of Ed regulations that we will use a peer review process to award our
grants. That\'s done for a couple of reasons. One, we want to maybe
first and foremost not show any type of favoritism or a subjective slant
or partiality toward any of the applications that come in to us. We do
not, as federal employees here at the Department of Ed, want to be
accused of favoritism or having selected only programs that we know
about, or for people that we may have a close association with. So,
that\'s one of the reasons to make sure that these are reviewed by your
colleagues, your peers in this field of alcohol and other drug abuse
prevention. Maybe specifically I should say among college students.

But secondly, it speaks to that piece, is the subject matter expertise.
I would \-- it\'s preferable to go out, because there are many more
subject matter experts around the country on this particular topic than
there are within the Department of Ed. That is not \-- that\'s just I
think simple math will tell you that, that the whole country is
certainly larger than the Department of Ed is in terms of its employees
versus its citizens. There are far many more colleagues that you have
that have expertise on this particular topic. And so, we will hire them,
if you will, and train them on how to be a peer reviewer and what they
need to look for as they are assessing your applications.

So, before I talk about the review process, let me just talk to you
about the recruitment process for peer review. You may have seen through
announcements of our higher education center\'s website and electronic
mailing lists that we are currently recruiting for peer reviewers for
this particular program. We are looking for people who have direct
experience and background in alcohol and other drug abuse prevention
programs among college students.

Once we train those individuals through a conference call that I and a
colleague here will conduct, we will talk to them about a lot of what
we\'ve talked about on the phone today, the selection criteria, the
absolute priority, what things they should be looking for. All of those
different nuances of the grant program.

Once we know how many applications we have, we will actually confirm the
peer reviewers and assign them to panels. Each peer review panel is made
up of three non-federal individuals who will be assigned up to six
applications to review over a two-week period.

So, that\'s just the basic makeup of the panel. And now I\'ll just talk
about the process for you. Once your application comes into the
Department and the application deadline date passes, our application
control center will contact us and/or our contractor and provide them
with copies of all of your applications that you submitted. Staff here
in the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools \-- and it will primarily be
me and, if necessary, depending on volume, the others that I train here
in the office, we will screen your application. The screening is
intended to simply check to see that the application is submitted by an
eligible entity and meets the priority of the competition. We are not
reading the applications word for word. We are not assessing them. We
are not scoring them. It is not our job to do that. But before we can
assign them to a peer review panel, we have to ensure that they do meet
the qualifications of the program.

So, for this particular program, I\'ll look to see that an institution
of higher education submitted the proposal and I\'m going to look for
those four elements of the priority. If any of those four are missing,
it will be deemed an ineligible application and the applicant will be
notified to that effect.

If they do meet all four elements of the priority, we will randomly
assign that proposal to one of the panels to review. After all of the
applications have been screened, we will move into the peer review
period. As I mentioned, it\'s a two-week period. The panel will
basically do first an independent review of your application. That means
they do not discuss the application with anyone else on the panel. They
simply read the application. They write up their comments, meaning the
strengths and weaknesses they\'ve identified, and score it. They do that
for every application.

The second part of the peer review is the panel discussion. Those
discussions are facilitated either by Department of Ed staff or others
that we hire and train to that effect. And we discuss the applications
and primarily look at any scoring discrepancies that may exist. Our goal
is to get the panel in agreement, both scoring-wise and comment-wise
with an application.

After that independent review is done and the panel discussion is done,
we at the Department will identify those campuses for which we want a
site visit conducted. We will send out a team of two \-- again,
non-federal \-- individuals trained in a site visit protocol to go out
to the campus for a one-day visit to clarify and verify. That\'s verify

information that was in the application and clarify any issues that may
have come up among the panel discussion.

The site visit team conducts the visit, writes a report of 5 to 10 pages
along with a recommendation for either exemplary status, effective
status, promising status, or none of the above. After all of the site
visit teams come back I will do a budget review. I will look at all of
the budgets. I will knock out anything that\'s unallowable. If you\'re
designated or recommended as a promising program, I will strip out
anything that has to do with dissemination. As I said earlier we do not
want the promising programs doing dissemination efforts. We want them to
focus solely on the enhancement and further evaluation piece of their
projects. And we will then move on to the final stage, which is getting
the slate of candidates or the slate of applicants approved, not only
within the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, but by the Secretary\'s
office within the Department of Education. And once we have that
approval, we\'re ready to obligate the awards and make those
determinations public.

After the applications are awarded, or the grants are awarded, all
applicants, whether or not you receive funding or designation from us,
you will receive a copy of your scores and comments from the peer
reviewers who evaluated your proposals. If your campus received a site
visit, you also will receive a copy of the site visit report that was
submitted by the team that conducted the site visit.

So, that\'s a brief overview of the peer review process and I\'ll open
it up for our last set of questions if there are any related to that.

Operator: Once again, for the final time, if you have any questions
please press the one key at this time. Okay, once again, if you do have
a question or comment, please press the one key. And I show no
questions.

Richard Lucey: Okay. Thank you, Operator.

Well, folks, as promised, this was going to take the full two hours and
we\'ve come in right on time, which makes me happy and I\'m sure you as
well. I\'ve given you my contact information at the start of the call.
You have not only my email address, but also my phone number.

If you have any campus-specific questions or further information that
you want about anything we discussed today, feel free to call me or send
an email message to me. I always set the parameters for folks when they
call that I am not allowed to discuss your specific project design or
your specific evaluation design. It\'s not for my place to do that. I
simply can try to explain and clarify the different definitions and the
requirements and the absolute priority for you. And it\'ll be up to the
peer reviewers, and ultimately the site visitors, to assess and score
your proposal.

So, I thank you for your time this afternoon. If you do plan to submit a
proposal, I wish you luck. And if you\'re interested in being considered
as a peer reviewer, go ahead and send an email message to me to that
effect and I can send you information on that process.

And with that, I\'ll turn it back over to John to close the call.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference for
today. Everyone have a great evening. You may now disconnect. Good day.