Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminars

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminars

Please see the program webpage for complete information about the funding opportunity. Below is a summary assembled by the Research & Innovation Office (RIO). Given the foundation’s focus on social justice, proposals without a social or racial justice component are unlikely to be competitive.

Program Summary 

Mellon invites proposals that meaningfully engage faculty, other academic leaders and visitors from a variety of fields in the study of academic freedom and democracy in the American university. We seek to support seminars that demonstrate through humanistic methods the ways in which a higher education system featuring a multiplicity of perspectives, thoughts, and voices is essential to a functional democracy.

The foundation is reorienting the 2024 competition and beyond from the study of comparative cultures to the study of major social and political challenges that directly impact the structures, policies, and practices of the American university. This shift in focus celebrates the Sawyer Seminars' original mission of elevating critical scholarship while also reframing it for our present moment. We seek to fund humanities-grounded seminars wherein multidisciplinary teams of faculty and other academic leaders collaboratively address timely issues affecting their campuses.

The subject to be considered this year is academic freedom and democracy in the American university.

Competitive proposals will demonstrate the ways in which the humanities might reform or reimagine existing institutional structures and campus cultures. They might promise to amplify the work of a pre-existing institutional committee or envision a new committee or seminar-style initiative, with academic freedom and democracy in the American university as the central subject of inquiry.

Applications will be evaluated on a) the centrality of humanities leadership to the proposed project; b) evidence of concrete buy-in and support for the proposed structure from university administration; and c) the strength of the plan for disseminating the project’s findings across campus units to catalyze institutional transformation.

Each seminar normally meets for one year, though some have continued for longer periods. To allow for planning, seminars need not be scheduled for the coming academic year. The seminar should be led or co-led by humanities faculty; however, the proposed seminar should be a collaborative effort involving participation by scholars and administrators from across disciplines and units, with varying perspectives on the problem being addressed. In addition, we encourage you to invite participants from nearby institutions, such as community colleges, liberal arts colleges, museums, research institutes, and local organizations to achieve interdisciplinary and community-engaged collaboration.

Deadlines

CU Internal Deadline: 11:59pm MST October 21, 2024

Sponsor Application Deadline: November 20, 2024

Internal Application Requirements (all in PDF format)

• Project Summary (must not exceed 8,000 words): Please include: 1) a summary description of proposed work; 2) the rationale for raising topic, the central questions to be addressed and the potential significance of the inquiry to be pursued including the impact on the institution; and 3) a description of the cases to be studied and the humanities methodologies to be brought to bear on them; the thematic “threads” that will run through the seminar; and evidence of concrete buy-in and support from university administration. Please note that given the foundation’s focus on social justice, proposals without a social or racial justice component are unlikely to be competitive.
• Principal Seminar Organizer(s) Short CV(s): Please include a short CV (1-2 pages) for the principal seminar organizers.
• Budget Overview (up to 1 page): A basic budget outlining project costs is sufficient; detailed OCG budgets are not required.

To access the online application, visit: https://cuboulderovcr.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/7006/home

Eligibility

The seminar should be led or co-led by humanities faculty; however, the proposed seminar should be a collaborative effort involving participation by scholars and administrators from across disciplines and units, with varying perspectives on the problem being addressed.

Limited Submission Guidelines

CU Boulder may submit one proposal.

Award Information

Funding requests should not exceed $300,000 for each seminar. Budget periods should align with reporting dates that work for the institution, but the first budget period must begin with July 1, 2025. For this reason, the first period may be longer or shorter than 12 months. Funds may support: one postdoc; up to two dissertation research fellows (in the form of graduate tuition or supplemental funding); travel and living expenses for short stays by visiting scholars; costs associated with coordinating seminars, including meals, honoraria, consulting fees, and stipends. Unlike in previous years, there are no required expenditures. Funds may not be used to cover released time for regular faculty participants, rentals of university space, or indirect costs.

Review Criteria

Preference will be given to proposals that seek to:

• Bridge the gap between the socially equitable world envisioned in much humanities scholarship and the policies and practices characterizing today’s universities;
• Empower humanists to be active participants in the strategic conversations and planning that many universities are engaged in or preparing to undertake;
• Imagine new and revised university structures that would enhance the growth of the humanities and promote the realization of more just futures.