Faculty Fellowships

CURRENT INSTITTUE FELLOWS

Who can apply

• Tenured and tenure-track faculty members in the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, Bienen School of Music, Medill School of Journalism, and School of Communication
• Applicants must secure approval of their Department Chair before applying (applicants from the Bienen School of Music, Medill School of Journalism, and the School of Communication must also provide Dean’s approval. See application instructions for details)
• Previous recipients of Institute fellowships must wait five years before reapplying
• Faculty are ineligible to apply during a year of tenure review.
• Applications are due January 18th, 2013.

How fellows are chosen

• Selections emphasize no single theme, but rather the originality, quality and importance of the research project. The applicant’s perceived ability to participate in collegial interaction is an additional criterion for selection.
• Three senior humanities scholars from outside Northwestern, completely unaffiliated with the University, evaluate the applications for scholarly merit.
• The Weinberg Dean makes the final selections based upon the external reviewers’ rankings and the need to insure distribution across rank and department.
• Preference is given to applicants who have not previously held a fellowship at the Institute.

Expectations of the Fellowship

Faculty may apply for a full year of supported leave OR a 50% teaching reduction. The latter does not count as a leave in the faculty member’s ongoing “leave clock.” Applicants for a fellowship must be eligible for a leave in 2013-14; The Humanities Institute fellowship will expand the normal one-quarter leave to a full-year. An applicant for the teaching reduction may not be on leave in 2012-13. Each applicant must secure the approval of her Department Chair before applying.

Fellows will:

• Be in residence on campus (except for approved short research trips) and participate in Institute events across the 2012-13 academic year (including the regular Lunch Colloquia, the Distinguished Harris Lecture, and the one or two Dialogue events).
• Present a talk based on their Institute-supported research at a mid-day Lunch Colloquium sometime during the year, usually on a Wednesday. The presentation will be about 20 minutes in length followed by a 30 minute discussion with other Institute Associates and additional colleagues whom the Fellow invites.
• Demonstrate that the research leave in the Kaplan Institute will have a evident impact on their undergraduate teaching. There are two ways to fulfill this obligation:
  • Option A. Fellows will offer, normally during the year immediately following the fellowship year, a new, one-quarter undergraduate course in the humanities (listed as an Institute course) incorporating research undertaken during the fellowship year. (The course may be co-listed in the Fellow's home department and may be open to department majors and others as the department and professor see fit.) This course will be among the group of courses offered to undergraduates by the Institute and as such it should exemplify the Institute's interdisciplinary agenda and commitment to new scholarship in the humanities.
  • Option B. Fellows will revamp an undergraduate course in their own department or program converting it into a more self-consciously interdisciplinary course inflected explicitly by the research pursued during the professor’s Institute Fellowship. The revised course syllabus and a narrative “post-mortem” describing the offering of the course must be submitted to the Institute Director. If appropriate, the duly revised course may be co-listed as a Humanities course.
  • FOR MEDILL FACULTY: Instead of creating a new course offered by Medill, Medill faculty must send to the Institute Director a written description of the effect of the Fellow’s Institute-based research upon her/his subsequent teaching.
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