CURAH congratulates the first two recipients of our new annual faculty mentor award: Neel Smith, professor and chair of the Department of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, and Donald Lawrence, professor of visual arts at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.
Please see the full announcements at CUR.org for Neel Smith and Donald Lawrence.
Every year CURAH awards travel grants to deserving undergraduates. This year we congratulate our two award winners, Tori Dehlin (Utah State University, majoring in Global Communication and Spanish) and Madeline Hass (U of Wisconsin Oshkosh, majoring in philosophy). Tori and Madeline presented their original research at this year’s National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Kennesaw State University.
Dehlin examines public discourse around sexual harassment and abuse in the twittersphere. She looked at tweets in English and Spanish to construct her comparative analysis and emphasized the value and impact of #MeToo/#YoTambien on different communities of participants and users of the hashtag. As Dehlin explained, this paper is the beginning of an ongoing study that will explore the impacts of social media in creating narratives of shared experience, as well as examine how discourses such as #MeToo/#YoTambien change over time.
Hass builds on work done by Gordon Graham. She constructs a philosophical argument about how art is able to transcend standard statements of value, advocating for a level of understanding that takes us beyond human experience and sensory perception. The audience embraced Hass’s argument with enthusiastic engagement. Speaking about her experience, Hass said, “NCUR has had an incredible impact on my undergraduate experience. It has given me the opportunity to present my work to other young academics and to improve my skills as a speaker. Most significantly, it has helped me to see that academia can be accessible, and that there is a place for people like me in academia.” Hass hopes to attend graduate school to continue her studies in the field of philosophy.
We have awards for travel to NCUR, Posters on the Hill (POH) and for international travel. Details are available here.
This a reminder to apply for the new Joe Trimmer travel award. Please see this earlier post for instructions.
The Arts & Humanities Division proudly announces an important addition to our funding programs! Joe Trimmer, a founding member of the Arts and Humanities Division, and his wife Carol have established the Trimmer Travel Fund. The fund supports an annual award to support international travel for undergraduate research presentations in the Arts and Humanities. The Trimmer Travel Fund anticipates making its first award to a student presenting at the May 2019 World Congress on Undergraduate Research in Oldenburg, Germany.
Joe Trimmer is Professor Emeritus of English at Ball State University (Muncie, IN) and the founding director of the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry. He is the author of numerous books on literature and culture, and a contributor to 20 PBS documentaries. He has served on the CUR Executive Board as the Arts and Humanities Division Representative, and as a member of the Board of Directors of Indiana Humanities. Carol Trimmer has served as the Outreach Coordinator for IPR, Ball State University’s NPR member station, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Arts Place, a regional Indiana arts organization, and Muncie’s nonprofit Gallery 308.
The National Office and the Arts & Humanities Division are deeply grateful for Joe and Carol Trimmer’s generosity and commitment to undergraduate research. Their gift is an important step in supporting arts and humanities student participation in international research conferences.
The Calls for Submissions for CURAH Travel Awards are now open. Please encourage students accepted to the World Congress to apply for the Trimmer Travel Award:
The long-standing CURAH Student Travel Award will continue to sponsor students presenting at NCUR and POH:
Applicants should submit the completed application form and all attachments as per the instructions to the CURAH Division Chair, Dr. Maria T. Iacullo-Bird by the deadline of Monday, February 25, 2019. Award announcements will be made by March 15, 2019.
Opportunities for undergraduates to present alongside faculty are rare in the humanities, but the Humanities Education and Research Association (HERA) is notable exception. Their annual conference welcomes “educators at all levels… including undergraduate/graduate students.” Best of all, HERA sponsors a $1,000 prize for undergraduate research. The prize goes to the best undergraduate paper at its annual conference. HERA also gives a smaller award to the student’s attending faculty mentor.
The 2019 conference is in Philadelphia, March 6-9. Its theme is “Highbrow, Lowbrow, Nobrow: Research and Aesthetic Values in the Humanities.” But HERA encourages participants to interpret their theme as widely as possible. The deadline for proposals (150-200 words) is January 25, 2019.
Last year’s prize for undergraduate research went to Leann Christopherson from San Francisco State University for her paper, “‘Everything was a Pretext to Arrest us’: Communicating Intersectionality through Transgressing Literary Borders in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” Her faculty mentor is SFSU English Professor Sarina Cannon.
More information is available from HERA’s conference page on their website. If you are a student interested in submitting your work, you should check out CURAH’s guide to writing an abstract.
Do you have information about an undergraduate conference opportunity or a prize for undergraduate research in your area? Let us know using the comments or by direct email to the editorial team.
There is currently only NEH grant that specifically requires undergraduate research: the Humanities Connections Grant (there are two versions: planning and implementation). Inaugurated in 2016, Humanities Connections grants support collaborative curricular projects and programs involving different departments at the same institution. They also must “incorporate meaningful student engagement activities such as undergraduate research projects.” Applications are due in the fall. If you’re thinking about a grant, you might appreciate these insights from CURAH councilor Amy Woodbury Tease (Norwich University) about her current grant: Developing an Interdisciplinary Curriculum to Foster Citizen Scholars. Woodbury Tease is one of three CURAH councilors with a Humanities Connections Grant. M. Soledad Caballero and Cheryl Nixon are also overseeing projects.
Norwich University is the oldest Senior Military College in the U.S. Woodbury Tease (English) and her co-director, Brian Glenney (Philosophy) were awarded a Humanities Connections Planning Grant to create the Norwich Humanities Initiative (NHI). Along with a team that includes faculty from the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Science and Mathematics, and Professional Schools, they are in the process of designing a deeply interdisciplinary team-taught curriculum around the theme of resilience, a curriculum that will embed research as well as experiential and service learning. Specifically, in the coming academic year, to align with Norwich’s 200th Anniversary, the NHI will sponsor three pilot courses co-designed and taught by faculty both in the humanities and in STEM and professional fields.
“A few years ago I co-taught an interdisciplinary course on Literature and Criminal Justice for our Honors Program,” Woodbury Tease said. “It was an amazing experience, but one that is limited at NU as team-teaching has not been integrated into the curriculum. When I heard about this grant at CUR Dialogues, I thought it would be the perfect way to begin a conversation about institutional support for team-teaching and also a way to increase the visibility of the Humanities at Norwich.”
According to Woodbury Tease, undergraduate research will be a featured part of the courses offered within the NHI. “All courses must have an undergraduate research component that ideally will be integral to the course” she said. She also stresses the integration of research with experiential and service learning. The project will also involve public dissemination of research results. “Service and experiential learning is encouraged, and we plan to hold a symposium for the initiative after the pilot to showcase the research completed in the courses and also to build a foundational cohort of students and faculty who can serve as ambassadors for the initiative as it moves forward.”
The connections are the interdisciplinary links in the courses. Proposed Norwich courses so far combine Philosophy with Neuroscience, Nursing with Creative Writing, Literature with Computer Science, History with Architecture, and English with Museum Studies.
Woodbury Tease suggests that team building and consultation are the keys to a successful proposal. “The NEH has an amazing group of people available to review a draft of your proposal and provide feedback,” she said. “I would highly recommend reaching out to them well in advance of the deadline and setting aside ample time for revision. I would also recommend gathering a team together with different skill sets so you can demonstrate not only a range of disciplinary investment, but also emphasize how the different team members will complement one another. Finally, getting institutional buy-in and letters from the President, Provost, Deans, Chairs, etc; will demonstrate that you are working on something that the university supports and wants to sustain beyond the grant period.” After the Norwich team received their grant, the most challenging part of the process has been conveying their vision of the initiative to the faculty to encourage their investment and participation in course design and promotion. So clear messaging and good press are an essential part of the overall planning.
Do you have an NEH Humanities Connections grant? Let others know about your experiences by making a comment below.
Feature photo above: Sean Michael McCrystal presents a project at Norwich University. Photo by Mark Collier.
The Council of Independent Colleges is sponsoring this grant for undergraduate research for the 2019-20 academic year. They want students, faculty mentors, archivists, and community organizations to collaborate in making local archival material publicly available through undergraduate research. Institutional teams will first attend a late June workshop in Washington, followed by intensive work with students during the year. Finally, a closing workshop in 2020 will include student participants.
If you’re interested in applying, here’s what you’ll need.
Prospective applicants should also consider registering for the 2:00 p.m. October 3 webinar sponsored by the CIC. The final deadline for applications is December 14. Full information for applicants is available from the CIC page.
August 15 is the deadline to apply for the upcoming CUR Institute on Creative Inquiry in the Arts and Humanities, October 5-7 at Montana State University in Bozeman.
CUR institutes are workshops led by seasoned CUR members. They are designed to help campus-based teams develop specific opportunities for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity — in this case focusing on the arts and humanities. Your team will work on issues unique to your own campus, but you’ll also get to hear more generally about current research on the learning outcomes of undergraduate scholarship and creative activity.
Thanks in part perhaps to the advocacy efforts of CURAH members, the House voted to reject the Grothman amendment that would have cut Federal funding for the arts and humanities by 15%.
You can read the full story on Artnet.
Many thanks to CURAH president Maria Iacullo Bird for getting the word out about the upcoming vote.
