Tulane School of Liberal Arts and the
Office of Corporate & Foundation Relations
Fellowship Opportunities at the
American Council of Learned Societies
September 3, 2015
ACLS Information Session, 2015
• Kevin Gotham
– Associate Dean of Grants, Research, and Graduate Programs
• Lou Franchina
– Senior Development Officer,
Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR)
• Gaurav Desai
– Professor of English
– ACLS recipient and reviewer
Presentation Topics
1. Introduction to Grant Writing
2. Working with the Office of Corporate and
Foundation Relations (CFR)
3. ACLS
4. Q & A
Why Does Tulane Want You
to Write Grants?
• High visibility for the university
• Overhead or indirect costs help balance the
university budget and pay for administration
• Contributes to prestige and national ranking of
the university
• Help to overall research infrastructure, fund
graduate students, and support graduate
programs
Why Do You Want to Write Grants
and Pursue External Funding?
• Summer salary, course release, reduced teaching load,
travel, funds for equipment
• Raises your research visibility
• Opens doors to consulting, collaborative research, new
research agendas, etc.
• Increases opportunities for writing, national &
international presentations, and shaping public policy
• Grants will help you make tenure
Some Ground Rules
• Please check Tulane’s Investigator Manual before
starting a proposal
• Faculty should not be submitting grant proposals directly
to private foundations or government agencies
• While there are some exceptions, awards are granted to
the institutions and not to individuals per se
• ACLS proposals must be submitted to the SLA Dean’s
Office before they go to CFR
SLA Top-Off Policy
• The SLA Dean’s office will supplement a grant to equal
the individual’s salary
• The Dean’s office cannot provide the entire salary for an
unpaid grant if it does not fall during a sabbatical year
• In terms of grants and durations, SLA’s policy for a “topoff” is limited to approximately 33 percent of academic
year salary
• All requests for top-offs must be negotiated with the SLA
Dean
What Can Corporate and Foundation
Relations Do to Help You?
•
•
•
•
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Provide information about funding opportunities
Provide assistance with forms and attachments
Work with you to develop budgets
Serve as a liaison to private foundations
Serve as a liaison to university-wide corporate
relationships
• Identify internal collaborators
• Provide assistance with proposal development, budgets,
submission, and stewardship reporting
• Secure leadership signatures as needed
What don’t we do?
– Student funding
– Intellectual property contracts
– Government/public funding
– Grants paid directly to individuals
– Grants from other universities
– Adjunct or Professor of Practice grants unless
paired with tenure track faculty
– When in doubt, ask me.
What ACLS Wants
• You learned it in kindergarten:
– Follow the directions
– Answer the questions
– Speak clearly
– Be honest
– Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?
Internal Process
• Paid out to Tulane in a specific faculty/staff
member’s name
• Notify SLA Dean’s Office
– Sabbatical involved
– Release time
– Salary implications (topping off)
• Work with me in CFR
• Do not need to route through SPA
ACLS
• Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities
• Maintaining and Strengthening Relationships
among Learned Societies
• Exploring New Methods and Subjects of
Humanities Research
• Representing Humanities Scholarship at
Home and Abroad
• Developing Reference Works and Critical
Editions
Overview
• Created in 1919
• $165,207,375 in assets (June 30, 2014)
• Gave $16,000,000+ in 2014-15
• 350 fellowships out of 3,500 applicants
• Most awarded disciplines:
– History (all regions)
– Literature
Overview (cont’d)
• Amount of fellowship determined by your
rank plus, in some cases, research costs
• Generally require a “major scholarly work”
product
• They will give you reviewer comments if
you request by email
ACLS Does NOT Fund
• Undergraduate study
• Curricular, pedagogical, or other studies directed primarily
toward the improvement of education, or for the preparation or
revision of textbooks
• Editing and publication of research already in manuscript
• Straightforward translation projects
• Travel for lecturing, teaching, or participating in meetings,
conferences, or workshops (except for Comparative
Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society grants and the
Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies)
• Creative work (e.g., novels, films, performance, or music
composition)
Applying for a Fellowship
• Not mutually exclusive
• US Citizenship required for most
• For most, cannot have taken research
leave in past 2 years
• Most cannot begin before July 2016
• The fellowship stipend level may be
reduced so that the combination of stipend
and sabbatical salary does not exceed the
amount of your full academic year salary.
Process
• Completed application form
• Proposal (no more than five pages, double spaced, in
Times New Roman 11-point font)
• Up to two additional pages of images, musical scores, or
other similar supporting non-text materials [optional]
• Bibliography (no more than two pages)
• Publications list (no more than two pages)
• Two reference letters
• Guidelines available: http://acls.org/programs/comps/
Applicable Fellowships
• ACLS Fellowship (Core)
— ACLS/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowships
(Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean,
Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union)
— ACLS/New York Public Library Fellowships
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•
•
•
Burkhardt
Collaborative Research
Chinese Studies (Luce)
Buddhist Studies (Ho)
ACLS Fellowships (Sept. 23)
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•
•
•
•
•
Assistant, Associate and Full Professors
$35,000 (25), $45,000 (25), $70,000 (20)
1,000+ applicants/ 70 fellows
Six to twelve months of continuous, full-time research
Work initiated between July 1, 2016 and Feb. 1, 2017
Eligibility:
— US citizenship or permanent resident status as of the application
deadline date.
— a PhD degree conferred at least two years before the application
deadline.
— a lapse of at least two years between the last “supported
research leave” and Sept. 1, 2016
Burkhardt (Sept. 23)
• $75,000 (plus funds for research costs and related scholarly
activities of up to $5,000 and for relocation up to $2,000) 10
• “long-term, unusually ambitious projects”
• Linked to 13 interdisciplinary centers
• Must be in residence 9 months
• 2016-17 (or ‘17-’18, or ‘18-’19), but must
commit to year and center on application
• Applicants will have begun their first tenured
contracts by the application deadline but no
earlier than fall 2011
Collaborative Research (Sept. 23)
• Up to $200,000* per project (8) ($60/$20)
• Up to 24 months
• Encourage junior scholars working with
senior scholars
• Preference for collaborators at different
institutions of higher education
China Studies (Nov. 4)
• Luce/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in China Studies
– Up to $50,000
– Research in China for publication in English
– Should have established Chinese contacts
• Collaborative Reading Workshops
– Up to $15,000
– Must be held between June 2016 and Sept. 2017
• Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture & Society
– Up to $25,000, conferences; $10,000 to $15,000,
workshops and seminars; up to $6,000, planning meetings
– Must be held between June 2016 and Dec. 2017
Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation
Program in Buddhist Studies
(Nov. 17)
• Postdoc Fellowship—$60,000
• Collaborative Research—$200,000
• Research Fellowships—$70,000
What ACLS Wants
Gaurav Desai
Gaurav Desai is Professor of English and has a joint appointment in the
Program of African and African Diaspora Studies at Tulane University.
Office: Norman Mayer 213 • 862-8162 • gaurav@tulane.edu
Recipient of a residential fellowship at the National Humanities Center in
2001, Desai has also been awarded a Rockefeller Foundation award for a
residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy, a visiting fellowship at the Center
for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and the Humanities at
Cambridge University, and an ACLS Burkhardt Fellowship for his
research. In 2004, Desai was made a life member of Clare Hall,
Cambridge University.
What ACLS Wants
Q: Whom should I ask to write my letters of recommendation?
A: Your main priority should be to secure letters from referees who can
write strong, specific letters on your behalf, preferably those who can
comment on the proposed project. Reviewers sometimes have
concerns about letters from colleagues in your department or from
dissertation advisors, and often prefer "arm's length" letters from
scholars who can attest to the significance of your work in the field and
have less personal interest vested in your success. It's good to be able
to show that you have placed yourself in the field, not merely in the
department or institution where you are employed or did your graduate
work. Think carefully about who can write the best letters and weigh
that against personal connections. Applicants at early career stages will
rely more on dissertation advisors as advocates. In any case, you will
want your referees to be tenured scholars.
What ACLS Wants
Q: Who is reading my proposal?
A: Proposals will be reviewed in two stages. At the first stage, three
established scholars in your discipline (and/or regional area of study)
will judge your proposal. These reviewers may or may not specialize in
the particular sub-field(s) covered in your proposal. The first stage of
review determines which applications will go on to the final stage. At
that point, applications are reviewed by a panel of scholars whose
collective expertise covers a range of disciplines in the humanities and
humanities-related social sciences.
Q: What other proposals will my application be judged against?
A: At the first stage, your application will be reviewed in the context of
others at your rank in the profession (assistant, associate, or full
professor or equivalents) in your discipline. In the second stage, your
application will be judged against others at your rank, but in various
disciplines.
What ACLS Wants
Q: Since my application will be read by both experts in my area
and in a range of humanistic fields, how should I pitch my
proposal?
A: To address experts in your field, explain why this project offers
insight into the issues of your discipline, and make clear what question
or problem is being addressed. In addition, though, be sure to explain
any terms that might not be familiar to those outside your field or
subfield, and discuss the significance of your project within your field. In
a section of the application separate from the body of the proposal, you
are also asked to address the significance of your proposed project for
the humanities.
What ACLS Wants
Q: How much of the proposal should be devoted to explaining
methodology, the project's significance, theoretical framework,
work plan, etc.?
A: The portion of the proposal that should be devoted to its constituent
parts varies according to the proposed project. An important part of the
application process is gauging the most central elements of your
project and presenting those elements to your best advantage within
the specified word/page limit.
Clearance
• Any application for external funding to a
corporation, foundation, or association
must go through Corporate & Foundation
Relations and must be submitted to the
Dean’s Office (i.e.—work with Kevin)
• Contact me if you want to submit:
– lfranch1@tulane.edu or 314.7308