Call for Applications: 2021–22 NEHC Faculty of Color Working Group Mellon Faculty Fellowship

With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New England Humanities Consortium’s Faculty of Color Working Group is pleased to accept applications for two (2) Mellon Faculty Fellowships in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences for the 2021–2022 academic year. The fellowship is intended for full-time faculty members from historically disadvantaged racial groups or those whose projects specifically confront institutional blocks for BIPOC faculty.

Applicants are limited to faculty from NEHC member institutions, which include Amherst College, Brown University, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Middlebury College, Northeastern University, Smith College, Tufts University, University of Connecticut, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island, University of Vermont, Wellesley College, and Wheaton College.

Applicant eligibility is determined by the following criteria:

  1. Must be faculty at a NEHC member institution
  2. Research must have high relevance for addressing the support needs of and/or issues and obstacles faced by BIPOC faculty at PWIs
  3. Demonstration of a viable research project
  4. A research project in the humanities/humanistic sciences

Criteria for successful applicants include, but are not limited to: quality of research proposal; strength of reference letters; stage of tenure/promotion dossier preparation and fulfillment of tenure and promotion requirements; scholar’s support needs to fulfill these requirements; likelihood of support or failure thereof related to scholar’s professional advancement at home institution; likelihood of applicant to contribute to a larger support network for faculty of color in the region and/or to understanding and addressing the impediments to success for FOC in higher education. Fellows should not teach during the fellowship year.

The Mellon Faculty of Color Fellowship program seeks to relieve scholars of these institutional hindrances by providing resources to reduce many of the barriers that make it difficult for faculty of color to research, think, and engage in their transformative work at their home institutions. These fellowships will provide resources that will allow them the time and space to focus on their scholarship away from the typical demands levied on their own campuses. Fellows will spend their fellowship year at a NEHC host institution with opportunities to interact with a broad and relevant intellectual community.

The Mellon Faculty Fellows will receive a stipend of $40,000 and a $2,500 moving expense if needed. The award funds will be remitted to the successful applicant’s home institution (the institution that formally employs them as faculty), who will use the funds to offset the fellow's salary and benefits. Fellows will be in residence at a host institution (the institution at which the fellow spends the fellowship year). Both institutions must be NEHC members. While the host institution does not pay salary or benefits to the Fellow while they are in residence, they are expected to provide the professional amenities to the visiting Fellow typically granted to visiting faculty and scholars.

The Mellon Fellows will be expected to give at least one public lecture or its equivalent at the hosting institute or center. The lecture will be publicized by the FOCWG and the NEHC.

Each application must contain:

  1. A Short Curriculum Vitae (3 pages max.)
  2. A Proposal Narrative (3 pages/1500 words max.)
  3. A Letter from a NEHC Institute/Center Director indicating support for hosting the fellow during the fellowship year.

To receive full consideration applications should conform to our application guidelines..

All documents must be submitted to Interfolio by February 1, 2021 at 11:59 pm (EST).

Applicants to this position receive a free Interfolio Dossier account and can send all application materials, including confidential letters of recommendation, free of charge.

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Call for Applications: 2021–22 UCHI Faculty of Color Working Group Fellowship

With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Connecticut, UCHI, together with the Faculty of Color Working Group of the New England Humanities Consortium, is pleased to accept applications for the UCHI/FOCWG Faculty Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. The fellowship is intended for full-time UConn faculty members from historically disadvantaged minority groups and/or those whose projects specifically confront institutional blocks for BIPOC faculty.

Criteria for successful applicants include, but are not limited to: quality of research proposal; strength of reference letters; and articulation within the proposal of how this project can contribute to a larger support network for faculty of color in the region and/or to understanding and addressing impediments to success for BIPOC faculty in higher education.

Applications for the UCHI/FOCWG Fellowship are due on February 1st and should be submitted through UCHI’s regular fellowship application portal on Interfolio. All submission requirements are identical to regular UCHI Humanities fellowships; and applicants will be assessed by the same interdisciplinary review panel of outside academics. When applying, we ask that you indicate on the application form that you would like to be considered for the UCHI/FOCWG Fellowship. Indicating that you would like to be considered for the UCHI/FOCWG Fellowship does not preclude you from being offered a UCHI Fellowship—indeed, any application for the UCHI/FOCWG fellowship is considered as an application for a standard UCHI fellowship.

UCHI/FOCWG Fellows are full members of the UCHI fellowship class and have all the same benefits and responsibilities. See here for fellowship application materials and further information on the fellowship program.

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Open Letter to Dr. Suresh Garimella, President of UVM

The New England Humanities Consortium opposes the proposed cuts to humanities and arts departments at the University of Vermont. To express and explain our strong condemnation of these budget proposals, we have written the below open letter to Dr. Suresh Garimella, President of the University of Vermont.


Dr. Suresh Garimella
President
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405

December 15, 2020

I am writing, on behalf of the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC), of which UVM is a founding member, to protest, in the strongest possible terms, the proposed elimination of and consolidation of several humanities and arts departments at the University of Vermont.

Former President Obama recently noted that the nation is in the midst of an “epistemic crisis”—even as we face a devastating pandemic and unprecedented challenges to our electoral system. We understand that all institutions of higher education face terrible decisions because of the latter two crises.

But we also know that in order to solve the crisis of knowledge and truth eating away at the foundations of our democracy, our students—and the public at large—need the lessons we learn from the study of religion, languages, arts, classics and historical preservation. We can’t understand where we come from, what we value, and how we live while ignoring historic foundations, thinkers like Lao Tzu and Plato and knowledge about the politics and wisdom of religious experience. The state of Vermont—indeed the nation—cannot lose current and future voices who reflect these global lessons and the contributions they will make to a more inclusive and diverse workforce. Without them, we are spiritually, intellectually and civically worse off.

As noted, the University of Vermont has been a regional leader in the humanities and a founding member of the NEHC, an active consortium of public and private institutions throughout the region funding humanities research, engaging in public outreach and implementing a Mellon-funded Faculty of Color Working Group. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the University of Vermont Humanities Center and an undiminished and robust slate of humanities departments at the university.

Therefore, we respectfully implore the University of Vermont to reconsider these proposals.

Sincerely,

Michael P. Lynch
Director, New England Humanities Consortium
Director, University of Connecticut Humanities Institute
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, University of Connecticut

Darryl Harper
Director, Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Amherst College

Amanda Anderson
Director, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown University

Kerill O’Neill
Director, Center for the Arts and Humanities, Colby College

Rebecca Biron
Director, The Leslie Center for the Humanities, Dartmouth College

Febe Armanios & Marion Wells
Co-Directors, Axinn Center for the Humanites at Middlebury College, Middlebury College

Lori Lefkovitz
Director, Northeastern University Humanities Center, Northeastern University

Alexandra Keller
Director, Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, Smith College

Kamran Rastegar
Director, Center for the Humanities at Tufts, Tufts University

Stephen Trzaskoma
Director, University of New Hampshire Center for the Humanities, University of New Hampshire

Evelyn Sterne
Director, University of Rhode Island Center for the Humanities, University of Rhode Island

Luis Vivanco
Director, The University of Vermont Humanities Center, University of Vermont

Eve Zimmerman
Director, Wellesley’s Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College

Domingo Ledezma & Patrick Johnson
Co-Directors, Wheaton Institute for Interdisciplinary Humanities, Wheaton College

Download this letter as a PDF.

UVM Humnaities Center logo

UVM Humanities Center Statement on Proposed Cuts to Humanities

The UVM Humanities Center decries, in the strongest possible terms, the proposal to eliminate humanities departments and programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. This proposal does not reflect a “comprehensive commitment to a liberal arts education” (UVM Vision statement), and it undermines the value of the Humanities for our students, faculty, state, and status as Vermont’s flagship land grant university.

As Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill—architect of the land-grant university system— once expressed, humanities are not marginal to the land grant university but lie at its very heart: “The fundamental idea was to offer an opportunity in every state for a liberal and larger education to larger numbers, not merely those destined to enter the sedentary professions, but to those needing higher instruction for the world’s business, for the industrial pursuits and professions of life.” For Morrill, the purpose of the university is not merely technical education; rather it is to create better citizens and strengthen the nation by enriching the human experience.

Through their teaching, research, and public engagement, the faculty of three humanities programs targeted for elimination—Religion, Classics, and Historic Preservation—as well as majors in various foreign languages targeted for elimination, have demonstrated that the Humanities help all students from across the University to:

  • Understand human experience across language, place, and time
  • Empathize with others
  • Think creatively and critically
  • Examine social problems related to race, gender, sex, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, class, and caste
  • Prioritize social justice and equality
  • Build skills in inquiry, writing and critical analysis, the so-called “soft-skills” that are in high demand in diverse careers

The proposal to eliminate these programs and majors based on an arbitrary measure like the number of majors is short-sighted and ignores the importance of these programs for the fulfilment of general education requirements for all students from across the university. Given that this proposal is patently about opening the door to cutting faculty positions, it egregiously ignores the contributions faculty in these programs make to Vermont through their public humanities work, consulting, and leadership in areas such as cultural heritage management, secondary education, teacher training, and humanities and arts programming throughout the state. UVM’s latest attempt to “engage” with Vermont would do well to recognize Humanities faculty are already deeply engaged in Vermont’s communities through a multitude of humanistic and artistic pursuits. Especially galling is the assault it represents on the accomplishments, productivity, and stature of the faculty who teach in these programs, whose contributions to UVM’s national and international reputation are substantial. We have been proud in the Humanities Center to provide direct support and awards to faculty in each of these programs.

Budgets are not apolitical, they are values statements. It is clear from the proposed budgetary cuts that the humanities are not valued at UVM. This is in spite of their inherent merit to our land grant institution, high enrollment courses that serve university mission, and excellent faculty. We question why we cannot invest university resources in academic programs and not bloated administrator salaries, or reform a budget model that systematically produces regular structural deficits to the academic unit that serves the greatest number and variety of students.

Sincerely,

Luis Vivanco, Director
Ilyse Morgenstein-Fuerst, Associate Director

Download a PDF of the statement

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