The College Of Wooster

The College of Wooster, doing business as Florence O Wilson Bookstore, is a private tax-exempt liberal arts college in Wooster, Ohio that acts as a federal grant recipient and research prime on scientific projects spanning environmental chemistry, materials science, and biological research. The institution does not hold federal contract vehicles and competes in full-and-open grant funding streams rather than under set-aside categories; 95% of its federal footprint consists of prime awards (primarily grants), with 5% sub-award activity.

The College of Wooster's federal revenue is concentrated in grant work from the National Science Foundation and contract research from the Department of the Army Corps of Engineers. NSF accounts for 20 of 41 total awards, with additional NSF funding through the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (3 awards) and the Division of Earth Sciences (2 awards). The Army Corps of Engineers Humphreys Engineer Center Support Activity has issued three firm fixed-price purchase orders, totaling $527 thousand in combined potential value, for PFAS analytical methodology development under the Department of Defense's Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). Recent contract work includes a $140,884 SERDP purchase order (awarded September 2023, completing September 2026) for development of analytical methodologies to measure per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in military-specification firefighting formulations using advanced sorbents and organofluorine analysis, and a $186,363 SERDP purchase order (awarded December 2022 with no-cost time extension, completing December 2026) for similar PFAS measurement work.

On the grant side, recent awards showcase the institution's research breadth. The National Institute on Aging funded a $482,620 project grant (April 2026 through March 2029, CFDA 93.866) supporting regulatory network modeling of cellular transitions in aging epithelia and capillaries for wound healing and tissue regeneration research. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences awarded a $316,797 project grant (September 2025 through August 2028, CFDA 93.859) investigating redox properties and protein interactions of yeast thioredoxin reductase. The NSF Division of Materials Research funded a $331,142 REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) site grant (April 2024 through March 2027, CFDA 47.049) supporting annual cohorts of eight undergraduate students in physics and chemistry research. The NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences awarded a $189,811 project grant (September 2023 through August 2025, CFDA 47.049) on optimal design of therapeutic phage cocktails using mathematical modeling to develop antimicrobial resistance treatments. Additional NSF funding supports PFAS atmospheric fate research (CFDA 47.050, 2022–2025) and pesticide multiphase oxidation and deposition studies under a CAREER award (CFDA 47.050, 2021–2026).

Activity has declined from three awards in 2022 to one annual award in recent years; three awards with combined potential value of $327 thousand face completion inside the next twenty-four months. The institution also acts as a sub-recipient on one Ohio Department of Education statewide tutoring sub-award (allocated $279,576 as of June 2022). Federal grant funding emphasizes undergraduate research involvement, interdisciplinary STEM collaboration, and foundational scientific investigation aligned with NSF and NIH missions.