Arts and Humanities

There will be up to 250 annual awards of $3,000 each. All tenured/tenure-track arts, humanities, and design faculty across the University system are eligible. Applications also will be accepted from arts, humanities, and design faculty holding full-time (100%) salaried fixed term appointments who are annually evaluated like tenured and tenure-track faculty (in terms of their research accomplishments, independence and ability to secure external funding.). Note that eligibility does not include, visiting faculty, non-salaried faculty appointment type W or employees with T appointments. Attention will be paid to ensure a representative proportion of junior, non-tenured faculty applicants receive these awards.

It is estimated that approximately 50% of arts and humanities faculty across the University system will receive the award annually. The award may be used for research needs, teaching materials, books, materials for creative works, or travel. Important Note: The award may not be used to supplement salary, nor may it be used for course buyouts. The awards must be spent within a three year period. That is, up to $9,000 of these annual awards may be accumulated.

An online application form will be available here on or before December 1, 2008. The application form will require that the applicant provide a proposed budget, a list of their 5 most recent scholarly/creative activities including but not limited to publications, presentations, and performances and answers to the following: a) Please describe your proposed use(s) and outcome(s) for the annual funds with specificity; b) What is the intellectual justification for the use of your funds (250 words)? c) How will the award further the progress of your research or teaching? Budgets must list all funds (external and internal) available and all expenses.

Note: If applicants have more than $3000 in research funds available to them to cover these expenses, the Imagine Fund will give their applications a lower priority. Support for work to be supported by the annual $3,000 awards must not be similarly supported by University of Minnesota (not including Imagine Funds) or external funds.

The next application deadline is 5:00 p.m. on Monday, February 2, 2009. Decisions will be announced in April 2009 with funding to be made available in July 2009. A committee of arts, humanities, and design faculty will review the applications.

The following criteria (in no particular order) will be used in making decisions regarding the annual awards:

1) Is the proposed use and outcome of the funds described with specificity?

2) Is the proposed budget focused and reasonable?

3) Is there a clear intellectual justification for the use of the funds from the award?

4) Is there a compelling case for how this award will advance the faculty member's research or teaching?

Applications will be reviewed without name or affiliation. They will be also sorted by staff in advance to ensure that no faculty committee member reviews an application from their home department, and in the case of the coordinate campuses no one reviews applications from their home campus. Each application will be reviewed by two faculty committee members and in the case of a significant variation in evaluation such applications will be reviewed by a third faculty committee member.