Time is running out for faculty at ACM colleges to apply for ACM-University of Chicago Faculty Development Grants. The program, now in its final five months, makes resources at the University available to faculty as they pursue their scholarly research agendas.
Twelve faculty members from eight ACM colleges have received grants since the program was begun in fall 2008 to promote interaction between ACM faculty and the University.
Grants support travel and costs associated with brief residencies to conduct research in the University libraries, meet with faculty, or participate in UChicago-affiliated seminars or discussion groups.
Several grants are still available, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. The funded activity must be completed and an expense report filed with the ACM office no later than May 31, 2013. The maximum grant award is $3,000, which can be used to support a variety of activities.
For example, St. Olaf College historian Eric Fure-Slocum, will spend a week in Chicago later this month with funding from a Faculty Development Grant. His primary focus will be archival research in the University’s Special Collections Research Center for his ongoing book project titled Losing Hope: Workers’ Disengagement and Political Cynicism in Metropolitan America, which concentrates on the period from the early 1950s to the mid-1980s.
“It’s expensive to stay in Chicago, and to be able to spend a week there is a great opportunity,” said Fure-Slocum. “I can really immerse myself in this project and dig much more deeply into the papers. I’m certainly expecting that while I’m there I’ll find other collections that will be useful, as well.”
He plans to mine the papers, reports, and correspondence of a variety of organizations, scholars, and activists, including the University’s Social Science Research Committee – predecessor of the research organization NORC – which helped develop what became the General Social Survey.
“There were some interesting conversations and debates [in the 1950s] among social scientists, foundations, and various public interest groups about working class political life,” Fure-Slocum said, and the Committee’s papers could yield insights into how researchers who conducted surveys at that time were framing issues of class and political and civic engagement.
In conjunction with the archival research, Fure-Slocum is making arrangements to meet with historians, political scientists, and other scholars at the University to discuss specific source materials and their contexts, as well as larger intellectual questions concerning his research topic.
Other recipients of the grants have used resources at the University’s Regenstein Library – consulting collections ranging from medieval Arabic literature to early 20th century avant-garde magazines – and participated in activities sponsored by the Council on Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences (CAS), including a Renaissance seminar and a workshop on interdisciplinary archaeology.
Details about applying for a grant are on the ACM-University of Chicago Faculty Development Grants webpage. For additional questions, contact Betsy Hutula at the ACM office (312/263-5000).
Links:
- ACM-University of Chicago Faculty Development Grants
- List of Faculty Development Grant recipients and their projects
