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Special Funds

Processes by which to apply

The College has received gifts to enhance programming, curriculum, faculty development, and the student experience in two particular areas: the Humanities and Arts, and Middle East Studies. These areas transcend particular departmental homes, and as such the funds are managed by the office of the Provost and Dean of the College and administered by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship. The process by which to apply for such funding isn’t onerous – and is detailed below.

Middle East Programmatic Enhancement Fund aims to diversify our programming and offerings that cover the Middle East. The intent of the gift is to expand our multi-disciplinary approach to these offerings, and to incentivize faculty and staff who do not usually teach in the area, to think creatively about projects that might bring a new set of students to the study of the region. Currently, the fund is able to support around $25,000 per year for projects that bring a multidisciplinary perspective to the study of the Middle East. Faculty who teach within the disciplines associated with our Middle East Studies program are absolutely encouraged to apply; further, the fund has an emphasis on bringing new and diverse disciplinary voices to the conversation. Particularly good opportunities for funding include: student-faculty research, invited speakers and guest artists, multi-media work, field trips, and course development.

The Griffith Fund for Humanistic Teaching and Inquiry supports faculty and staff doing teaching, research, scholarship and creative work within the humanities broadly understood, or using humanistic methods. Currently, the fund is able to support around $20,000 per year, for initiatives that include: course development, redesign, and overhaul to reflect emerging and innovative humanities education, and the development of interdisciplinary and team taught courses engaging humanities faculty and humanistic inquiry, as well as domestic travel seminars related to humanistic inquiry; transportation costs to museums, cultural sites, field experiences to bring our students to locations necessary for their course work and learning; honoraria to support guests and experts who zoom into humanities classes, to support guest artists and collaborators, to bring films to class and campus, and innovative community-based pedagogical and research activity in the humanities.  The fund could also support student travel to conferences in their disciplines and fields, and faculty writing projects in their final stages, through funding for book workshops or writing retreats.

To apply to access either of these funding sources, please send an email to CTLS@dickinson.edu   copying kozimorm@dickinson.edu, with a single document that briefly (300 – 500 words) details:

1. Summary of the proposed initiative. Include the funding need, initiative goals or learning outcomes, and programmatic, pedagogical, student support, or faculty support proposed;
2. The ways that the proposed project fits the remit of the fund and the anticipated impact of the initiative;
3. A budget and timeline.

Applications for access to either fund will be accepted on a rolling basis; funding will be prioritized by the breadth of the campus community the project will reach, and the ways that the funding is consonant with the intent of the gifts.