Humanities Grants and Fellowships Workshop April 15, 2015

Led by Anne LatowskyWorld Language Education

College of Arts and Sciences

Supported with Research One funds from theUSF Office of Research and Innovation

Funding Research in the Humanities• Competition is fierce• Funding rates are low• Preparing compelling proposals is only the

beginning• The right RFP for your project matters• Consider your competition

• USF is one of the nation's top 63 public research universities • USF is a metropolitan university, founded in 1956 on the central west

coast of Florida and in the short period of little over half a century has grown to be one of the largest universities in the country (with more than 48,000 students) and one of the most active in research.

• USF is one of only 25 public research universities nationwide with very high research activity

USF is:GlobalDiverseMetropolitanInnovative

Demands on you are increasing…How should you spend your research time?

• Committees• Community

• Grants• Fellowships

• Present• Network

• Curriculum• Mentoring

Teach Publish

ServiceResearch

Funding Sources• Prestigious Faculty Awards

http://www.acad.usf.edu/Faculty/Research/awards.htm

• National Endowment for the Humanities www.neh.gov• American Council for Learned Societies www.acls.org• The Foundation Center www.fdncenter.org• Community of Science www.cos.com • Grants.gov www.grants.gov

Discussion points for today• Your goals/Your proposal• Choosing where to apply• Structuring your proposal• Strategies to enhance your application• Your research resources at USF• Insight into peer review panels for

humanities scholars

My story

•NEH Summer Stipend • Foundational work• Reporting and publication

•NEH Faculty Research Fellowship• Application process• Establishing the award• Reporting and publication

•NEH Summer Stipend judge

Tell us about your project….•Your project •Expectations in your field

•State of your project

Funding

Pitch

Data Idea

Where do you find funding?

Tap into your University resources• USF Division of Sponsored Researchhttp://www.research.usf.edu/sr/funding_opportunities/

• TRAIN’s Faculty One Stophttp://www.research.usf.edu/TRAIN/facultyOne.asp

• And your College’s Office of Research*

*For the College of Arts & Sciences http://www.cas.usf.edu/research/about/

Funding ProgramsUSF Internal Awards Program • Creative Scholarship• New Researcher• Faculty International TravelHumanities Institute GrantsACLS FellowshipsGuggenheim Fellowship NEH Grants and Fellowships Fulbright Scholars Program*URL to program provided in slide notes

Keys to enhancing your application

• Be true to yourself – be sure that your scholarship fits the grant you’re applying to

• Carefully examine proposal guidelines• Construct a persuasive argument• Imagine future return on investment• The path to the book you ultimately write• Finding the balance between an out-of-field

peer reviewer and an expert in your field

Borrowed and paraphrased advice from successful applicants:

1) no work on a narrative about your book is wasted time--even if you don't win a fellowship, you should be able to reuse the material (e.g. in a book's introduction),

2) most humanities fellowships have a similar structure and require little alteration of your basic application (i.e. it's easy to apply to multiple fellowships over multiple years),

Advice continued:

3. given the percentages, one has to be willing to apply over a number of years. 4. If the application is solid, there is still a lot of luck involved--getting the right mix of committee members, for example. Will someone 'bang the table' in support of your project?5. The key is to develop a thick skin and apply continuously, knowing that none of this work on applications is wasted. Get used to submitting these proposals pretty regularly and getting rejected.

6. It's important to have completed a good amount of work on your project before applying for the big grants (NEH, ACLS, etc.). Years ago, you could get an NEH on a good idea, but that's no longer sufficient. You need to be pretty far along in the project. Agencies are now under a lot of pressure to demonstrate "outcomes," and they don't want to take a risk investing in a half-baked project that may never come to fruition. Instead, they want to push someone over the goal line. They want to help someone complete a project.

Advice continued:

7. Well, I’ve been on a bunch of these NEH committees by now, and my main advice is to read the requirements REALLY CAREFULLY and if they say they want evidence of A, B, C, and D (significance, budgetary and logistical feasibility, sustainability, completion likelihood, etc.), make sure A, B, C, and D are REALLY OBVIOUS in your proposal, like each one of those things gets a new paragraph in that order. People on these committees read so many proposals, and are asked to justify their rankings for each one using those criteria directly, so you’re already ahead if you make them easy to find. 8. Recognize that it’s a complete crapshoot and it’s not a personal condemnation if your project doesn't get funded. The last NEH committee I was on received something like 300 applications, of which I read 40 and recommended 5 as superior. They ended up funding 3 out of the 200, only one of which was one I’d read.

Advice continued:

The Peer Reviewer’s Perspective•40 proposals?•Broad field•Limited time

•Who are they?•From home or D.C.?•Why do it?

Major categories of an NEH proposal

Research and Contribution

Methods and Work Plan

Skills and Materials  Final Product

My experience as a judge

• Number• Scope• Competence• Decisions!

Evaluation Scale for NEH

• A rating is assigned to each application along with comments.

• E (excellent)• VG (very good)• G (good)• SM (some merit)• NC (not competitive)

Factors for you:

•Stage of career•What sort of school are we?•Stage of project•Other funding•Return on investment

Consider This

•Letters•How to pitch your project•Finding the right tone•Shape a compelling narrative that will resonate with your peer reviewers

Evaluating the Quality of Applications

1. the intellectual significance of the proposed project, including its value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both; 2. the quality or promise of quality of the applicant as an interpreter of the humanities; 3. the quality of the conception, definition, organization, and description of the project and the applicant’s clarity of expression; 4. the feasibility of the proposed plan of work, including, when appropriate, the soundness of the dissemination and access plans; and 5. the likelihood that the applicant will complete the project.

Whom are you citing????

Anne Latowsky Bibliography

Berschin, Walter. Biographie und Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter III: Karolingische Biographie 750-920 n. Chr. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1991.Blacker, Jean. The Faces of Time: Portrayal of the Past in Old French and Latin Historical Narrative of the Anglo-Norman Regnum. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.Brown, Elizabeth A.R. and Michael W. Cothren. “The Twelfth-century Crusading Window of the Abbey of Saint-Denis: Praeteritorum enim recordatio futurorum est exhibito.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 49 (1986): 1-40.

NEH FINAL REPORT questionsWhat can they tell us?

• What did you do during the tenure of your award, and how does this compare with what you had planned to do when you applied?

•Has either your understanding of your subject or your approach to it changed significantly as a result of the work conducted under your award? If so, in what way?

•How has your award-supported work furthered your scholarly career? What are your publication plans?

•Does your award-supported work have implications for your teaching? •To what extent will you be able to continue work on the project supported by the award? Is this project sustainable at your institution?

•For Faculty Research Award recipients: are there other ways in which your award-supported work will further the educational mission of your institution?

Other considerations

Expressed roughly in percentages, what proportion of the fellowship period did you spend (a) at your own institution or home? (b) at other locations in the U.S.? (c) at locations abroad?

Did your employer contribute any additional funds for travel, supplies, research assistance, or other such ancillary purpose, to help you with your work under the fellowship? If so, please indicate amounts.

What is the sabbatical or similar leave policy at your place of employment?

Other considerations

Quick recap…

• Apply appropriately and often• Read the instructions• Do everything right• Be clear • Jazz up your project with something more than just

sitting and writing at home• Have as many peers and mentors involved as you

can• Solicit help from previous winners• Look at successful proposals from those were are

willing to share

Questions? I’m here to help. alatowsk@usf.edu