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DECEMBER 2022
 
This December newsletter is being redistributed because the item on the Community-Engaged Intensives in the Humanities initiative should have included a link to the Executive Summary of the Pilot Evaluation as well as an acknowledgement of Dr. Lisa Kaul’s authorship of the report and leadership of the evaluation process.
 
We wish everyone a wonderful end to another semester and a restorative break to come soon. As always, feel free to reach out to us with any news you’d like to share next month or if you would like to talk about grant and fellowship resources and opportunities. It's never too early to connect, and we’re always available to assist - see you in 2023!
RECOGNITIONS

David Esteban, Associate Professor of Biology, received one of nine research grants made by the Patient-Led Research Collaborative to fund high-impact projects that seek to understand the causes, diagnostics, and treatments of Long COVID. His funded project, entitled “Microbial metabolites as disease-modifying factors in Long-COVID,” will investigate the production of, and response to, microbially derived AhR ligands in the microbiomes of people with Long COVID. Read more...

Paul Kane, Professor of English, was awarded the Order of Australia by the Australian government for “significant service to literature, particularly through the promotion of Australian arts, poetry, and emerging talent.” He also recently published his eighth collection of poems, Earth, Air, Water, Fire, a series of “verse essays.” Read more...

Allison Puglisi received an honorable mention from the American Studies Association for her dissertation,  “Redefining Residency: Black Environmental Thought in New Orleans, 1929-1998” (Harvard University).  The Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize is awarded annually, by the American Studies Association,  to the best doctoral dissertation in American studies, ethnic studies, or women's studies. Read more...

 

Mallory Whiteduck, Assistant Professor of Political Science, was awarded the 2022 Ralph Henry Gabriel prize for her dissertation, “The Rez: Aesthetics of the Everyday in Native American Literature and Visual Culture” (University of Michigan). “The Rez” is a field-making and defining work. Whiteduck's nuanced attention to the “everyday” of the reservation is beautifully original and bolstered by a deeply generative interdisciplinarity. Read more...

Between fall 2019 and spring 2022, the Mellon-funded Community-Engaged Intensives in the Humanities (CEIH) initiative supported the development and implementation of 20 community-engaged intensives (CEIs), offered by 12 different faculty members and in partnership with 37 different community organizations, five of which were new collaborators with the Office of Community-Engaged Learning

The CEIH initiative piloted a “Storytelling Methodology” under the leadership of Lisa Radhika Kaul, DPhil, to center and learn about the experiences of all of the participants in the new Intensives. To better understand the learnings and community impact of community-engaged intensives, the pilot evaluation employed the “most significant change” technique, supplemented with quantitative data collection, to collect stories in a participatory way from students, faculty, and community partners. The executive summary of the Pilot Evaluation, prepared by Dr. Kaul, can be found here. This process embodied the spirit of the initiative by uplifting participants’ experiences, learning through partnerships and conversation, centering a similar sense of humanistic exploration and inquiry, and aiming to build an inclusive learning community. Many of these themes highlighted the importance of relationship-building, humility in exchanges with the community, and a desire for high impact and holistic learning opportunities. 

In talking about their experiences, for example, students shared that the CEIs supported active community building, practices of inclusion, meaningful class content, and a holistic way to bring their entire Vassar experience together. Students also shared that they felt that the CEIs provided opportunities to feel empowered, a sense of belonging, and experience the interdisciplinarity that is the hallmark of a Vassar liberal education. 

Faculty shared that the CEIs supported opportunities to pursue personal and pedagogical passions while better understanding the local community needs and interests. Additionally, faculty felt that small class sizes, intentional course design, departmental support, and the rebalanced curriculum enabled faculty to offer the CEI. 

Community Engaged Intensives offered community partners opportunities to provide a resource to their own constituents, to connect with and mentor Vassar students, and to learn alongside Vassar faculty and students. 

The evaluation found, among many other outcomes, that the desire to build relationships and to connect with others who live in the local community motivate community members to engage in  a CEI, faculty to offer a CEI, and students to participate in a CEI. In addition, trust and long-term relationships, funding from Mellon, and non-didactic pedagogical opportunities, all enabled successful community-engaged intensives that supported high impact learning and teaching. 

To discuss or learn more about these and other CEIH activities, contact the CEIH director, Elizabeth Cannon
FUNDING OPPORTUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

January 1 
NEH Cultural and Community Resilience

The Cultural and Community Resilience program supports community-based efforts to mitigate climate change and COVID-19 pandemic impacts, safeguard cultural resources, and foster cultural resilience through identifying, documenting, and/or collecting cultural heritage and community experience.
 

January 17 
NEH Climate Smart Humanities Organizations

Through the Climate Smart program, organizations can undertake activities such as energy audits, risk assessments, and meetings with consultants. The resulting climate smart plan helps you establish goals and prioritize actions that reduce your organization’s impacts on the environment through mitigation and vulnerability from extreme events through adaptation

 

February 2
NEH Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities

The Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities (DOT) program supports humanistic research that examines the relationship between technology and society. NEH is particularly interested in projects that examine current social and cultural issues that are significantly shaped by technology.The program supports projects led by individual researchers (up to $75K) and by collaborative teams (up to $150K).

February 12
Catwalk Institute (Catskill, NY) welcomes proposals from Vassar faculty, alumni and collaborative teams for 2-3 week residencies from May-October 2023. Catslair residencies are available to artists, writers and scholars in all media exploring subjects related to place, landscape and environment that are investigating universal aspects of nature embedded in the Hudson Valley landscape and ecology. Residencies are space/time grants, including a fully outfitted kitchen, and individual and group studio spaces. Submissions will include: a cover letter with a picture of yourself, letter of reference, resume, samples of your work, and a one-page description of the work you are proposing while in residence stating how the Hudson Valley relates to your project and / or how it will enrich your artistic abilities and your preferred two residency session dates. If you are submitting as a collaborative team, please include resumes and headshots for all members.  

Residency Session Dates:

Session #1: May 16th – June 4th (*19 days)

Session #2: June 6th – June 18th (12 days)

Session #3: June 20th – July 9th (*19 days)

Session #4: July 11th – July 23rd (12 days)

Session $5: August 1st – 13th (12 days)

Session #6: August 15th – 27th (12 days)

Session #7: August 29th – September 10th (12 days)

Session #8: September 12th – October 8th (*19 days)

Submit complete application materials to applications@catwalkartresidency.com by 12 February 2023. More details available on the website: www.CatwalkInstitute.org.

March 1
Bogiliasco Fellowships 

Approximately 60 Fellowships - or residencies - are awarded to artists and scholars in the various disciplines of the Arts and Humanities (Archaeology, Architecture, Classics, Dance, Film/Video, History, Landscape Architecture, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Theater, and Visual Arts) per year. Fellows are provided with living quarters, a work space, and full board for a month at the Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy.

March 7 

Mary Baker Eddy Library Fellowship 
The Mary Baker Eddy Library awards annual short-term research fellowships to support original contributions to scholarship. Relevant areas of research in the Library’s collections include women’s studies; spirituality and health; religious studies; nineteenth- and twentieth-century history; cultural and social history; architecture; and journalism as well as the life of Mary Baker Eddy and history of the Christian Science movement.

March 20 
AMS-Simons Research Enhancement Grants for Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUI) Faculty

This new program is for mathematicians employed full-time at primarily undergraduate institutions. Eligible applicants are those with an active research program who earned a Ph.D. at least five years before the start of the grant; research must be in an area on the Disciplinary Research Programs list published by NSF’s Division of Mathematical Sciences. Each year for three years, awardees will receive $3,000 to support research-related activities as well as $300 for administrative costs and $300 in discretionary departmental funds. Applications will open January 2, 2023 and close March 20, 2023; funds will be disbursed in July 2023.

April 8
Creative Writing Fellowships
The National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships program offers $25,000 grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry to published creative writers that enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. This program operates on a two-year cycle with fellowships in prose and poetry available in alternating years. In 2023 they will be accepting applications in prose (fiction and creative non-fiction).

TIPS FOR GRANTSEEKING

Texas A&M University Sponsored Research Services hosts a series of monthly info sessions titled AnSRS4U - Answers for You. These info sessions cover a variety of research administration topics and issues, including but not limited to, proposal preparation; recent updates announced by NSF, NIH, and DOE that affect the preparation of applications; an overview of NIH and NSF; data management; audits of sponsored projects; intellectual property considerations in sponsored research; FCOI and foreign influences; and more. You can find the recorded presentations and slides from these info sessions on their website.

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Office of Contracts and Grants website offers a collection of recorded in-depth sessions that tackle more complex research administration topics, including but not limited to, ORCID ID, SciENcv, Understanding Funding Opportunity Announcements, and External Activity Disclosures & Federal Sponsor Requirements. Their website also offers extensive user guides for the proposal process, preparing and editing proposals in Research.gov, and more. 

DON'T FORGET
Check out the fellowship calendar to see a full list of upcoming opportunities and programs to apply for!
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