Felician University has been a proud participant in the second cohort of the Visioning, Organizing, Leading, and Advancing the Research Enterprise (VOLARÉ) Institute, an NSF-funded capacity-and research-building initiative administered by the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). From September 2025 through June 2026, Felician was one of 25 higher education institutions selected to expand its STEM participation and cultivate new, structured pathways for institutional research.

Felician’s VOLARÉ Team and Key Outcomes

Dr. Tara Kent, Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences and Project Lead; Dr. Marilú Marcillo, Dean of the School of Business & Information Sciences; and Laura Pakhmanov, Director of Industry and Foundation Relations, participated in a series of workshops and expert-led sessions, including a national in-person conference in Orlando, Florida, in November, and the virtual Grand Finale this past June.

In just nine months, this team was successfully able to:

• Strengthen grant applications: After attending various informational sessions and carefully assessing the needs of Felician’s community, the VOLARÉ team developed new strategies to strengthen multiple grant applications submitted to both federal agencies and private foundations, thereby improving the competitiveness of Felician’s future proposals.
• Submit a proposal for a new Office of Research and Sponsored Programs: In alignment with the institutional benchmarks of the Felician Forward 2025–2028 strategic plan, this office would provide pre- and post-award services, as well as management and support for campus-wide research compliance.
• Develop a more intentional, evidence-based strategy to increase research bandwidth: Through VOLARÉ’s series of assessments and national best practices, the team introduced an institution-specific strategy to expand its portfolio of sponsored programs and identify ways in which the university can foster greater internal research accessibility.
• Expand Felician’s network: The Felician team took this opportunity to build meaningful connections with research administrators and faculty from peer institutions across the country, encouraging future collaboration and partnerships with universities that share similar goals.
• Increase Felician’s federal competitiveness: Participating in VOLARÉ gave Felician exclusive access to tools that analyze its current capacity to compete for federal funding. This allows Felician to develop an awareness of the F&A cost recovery model as a revenue-neutral pathway to funding a permanent sponsored programs office.

“Our participation in the VOLARÉ Institute afforded Felician University a rare and substantive opportunity for professional exchange with distinguished mentors and peer institutions engaged in similar work,” said Dr. Kent. “Through this collaborative process, we gained meaningful insight into national best practices for cultivating a robust research infrastructure, knowledge that we believe will meaningfully inform Felician’s continued institutional growth, its capacity to support faculty and student scholarship, while also advancing the University’s ability to realize its broader strategic goals.”

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About Felician University 

Felician University is committed to supporting academic success at any stage of life. With over 2,800 undergraduate, graduate, and adult education students enrolled across the schools of Arts & Sciences, Business & Information Sciences, Nursing, and Education, Felician provides diverse learning experiences that equip all students with the skills to meet the demands of today’s society. Felician University was recognized in Newsweek’s America’s Best Colleges for Women 2026, earning distinction as the No. 1 college for women in New Jersey. Additionally, Felician has been named a best value school by payscale.com and Moneymagazine, and as one of the best college locations in NJ (#4) by niche.com. Our Master of Science in Nursing program is ranked one of the best online graduate nursing programs in the nation by U.S. News and the Princeton Review. We are proud to be designated as a Military Friendly School (Gold Status) for the fifteenth year, a testament to our dedicated support of Veteran students. Our diversity as an HSI (Hispanic Serving Institution) and MSI (Minority Serving Institution), with underrepresented students comprising more than half of the student population, reflects our inclusive and supportive environment and earned us a spot on Washington Monthly’s Top 100 HSI list (#30). With campuses in Rutherford and Lodi, New Jersey, our Franciscan values of respect for human dignity, compassion, transformation, solidarity with people in need, justiceand peace are woven into the very foundation and development of tomorrow’s leaders. Felician University is sponsored by Felician Sisters International. For more information, please visit https://felician.edu/