Grants and Writing Resources for Kean University
On April 20, 2026, the first day of Kean's Research Days, six student teams pitched their research to a panel of judges in the Cougar Investigator Shark Tank Competition. Three of them won $10,000 grants to develop their projects further. One winner, CougarPark, is an AI pilot that gives real-time parking information at Kean. Wenzhou-Kean students built another, SmartPulse, an AI platform for campus information.
Research Days
The Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowship (CURF) sponsors University Research Days every April, when students present preliminary or finished work to the campus. The 2025 edition was the 17th. In 2026 the Union campus hosted research showcases for each of Kean's six colleges and a Psy.D. Dissertation Symposium on April 21. Undergraduate and graduate presentations the next day came with the Research Days Awards.
CURF Grants
Kean has run Students Partnering with Faculty since 2004. A full-time faculty member and up to two full-time undergraduates spend at least six weeks on a summer project and carry it into the academic year. Each student receives a $3,500 stipend, the mentor receives $3,500, and the team can get up to $2,000 for materials. The students present results at Research Days the following April.
The Shark Tank winners come out of the Cougar Investigator Research Challenge Grant. Teams of two to four students, which may mix undergraduates and graduate students, write a two-page proposal for non-specialists with a tenure-track faculty mentor. A committee picks six teams to pitch: five minutes, no more than three slides, then ten minutes of questions. Winners finish the research within six months and report at the Fall CURF Innovation Showcase. For faculty-student pairs, the Research and Innovation Faculty-Student Seed Grant gives up to $5,000 to collaborative proposals and is open to undergraduates and master's students.
Fellowships and Graduate Support
CURF matches students with national fellowships such as the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, then helps with the application package and the interview. Its NSF GRFP page covers the National Science Foundation fellowship for early graduate students, which it lists at up to three years of support with an annual stipend of $37,000.
Kean hires administrative, research and teaching assistants through its Graduate Assistantship Program. A full-time administrative or research assistant works 15 to 20 hours a week with full tuition and fees waived. Teaching assistants earn $1,667 per course section and one-third tuition remission. Assistants carry at least 9 credits a semester and keep a graduate GPA of at least 3.5. Graduate students presenting at a professional conference can also apply for CURF's Conference Travel Grant of up to $500, which asks recipients to present again at the Kean University Research Symposium.
Student Journals
The Kean Digital Learning Commons hosts three student journals. Kean Quest, founded in 2018, is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal for research and creative work by students and recent graduates in any discipline. Graduate students manage Kean Quest Graduate, which takes master's and doctoral research and book reviews. The newest, The Kean Review: Journal in Student Research, published its first issue in 2026. Faculty advisors guided the student submissions, and the journal aims to teach authors how peer review works.
The Writing Center and Dissertations
The Writing Center in the Nancy Thompson Learning Commons works on lab reports, research papers, essays, theses and dissertations. Sessions cover organization, thesis development, citation and grammar. Academic Specialists give graduate-level writing help, according to the 2026-2027 graduate catalog, and the center posts skill sheets on APA 7th edition and Chicago style.
Doctoral graduates can publish the dissertation in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global through ProQuest's ETD Administrator; the library's FAQ on ProQuest submission explains the steps. The Kean Digital Learning Commons keeps a Theses, Dissertations & Capstone Projects collection.
Our editors give dissertations, capstone projects and journal submissions a final edit for grammar, consistency and format before they go to ProQuest or a Kean journal. See our Kean University dissertation and thesis editing and Kean University essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with Kean University, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your Kean writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.