Program Description: Serious interdisciplinary research often requires established scholar-teachers to pursue formal substantive and methodological training in addition to the PhD. New Directions Fellowships assist faculty members in the humanities, broadly understood to include the arts, history, languages, area studies, and zones of such fields as anthropology and geography that bridge the humanities and social sciences, who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest. The program is intended to enable strong scholars in the humanities to work on problems that interest them most, at an appropriately advanced level of sophistication. In addition to facilitating the work of individual faculty members, these awards should benefit humanistic scholarship more generally by encouraging the highest standards in cross-disciplinary research.

Application guidelines: Applications consist of (1) a proposal (maximum length: 2000 words) and a summary of the proposal (no more than 300 words), (2) a concise (no more than five pages) curriculum vitae, (3) an institutional endorsement letter and a letter of recommendation from a senior colleague, and (4) a preliminary budget. The proposal should provide an explanation of the overall significance of the research being undertaken and how the proposed new direction will assist in the development of the field. The required letters may be supplemented by a letter of recommendation from a colleague in the new field. The budget should include items for salary and standard fringe benefits, projected training costs, project-related travel, and in certain circumstances (such as vital professional meetings and short site visits) lodging. No overhead or indirect costs are permitted. The Foundation assumes that needs for equipment or for research assistants will be met by the fellow’s home institution. Final budgets commonly range from $175,000 to $250,000; the maximum is $300,000.

The complete solicitation can be found online for review.

Candidates will be faculty members who were awarded doctorates within the last six to twelve years and whose research interests call for formal training in a discipline other than the one in which they are expert. Such training may consist of coursework or other programs of organized study. It may take place either at fellows’ home institutions or elsewhere, as appropriate. Although it is anticipated that many fellows will seek to acquire deeper knowledge of other fields within the broadly defined sphere of the humanities evoked above, proposals to study disciplines farther afield will also be eligible. The principal criteria for selection are: (1) the overall significance of the research, (2) the case for the importance of extra-disciplinary training for furthering the research, (3) the likely ability of the candidate to derive satisfactory results from the training program proposed; and (4) a well-developed plan for acquiring the necessary training within a reasonable period of time.

Fellows will receive: (1) the equivalent of one academic year’s salary; (2) two summers of additional support, each at the equivalent two-ninths of the previous academic year salary, and (3) tuition or course fees or equivalent direct costs associated with the fellows’ training programs. To permit flexibility in meeting individual scholars’ needs, these funds may be expended over a period not to exceed three full academic years following the date of the award. The Foundation also expects the fellow’s home institution to use such budgetary relief as the award may occasion for academic purposes, preferably in the fellow’s department.

Associate Deans or Designates should submit the following materials electronically to limitedsub@austin.utexas.edu by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, June 29, 2012:

1. Dean's or ORU Director's Letter of Nomination
2. Two page maximum lay abstract describing the aims/needs of the proposed research project.
3. Short bio sketch/CV of the UT PI

Each college may submit one (1) nomination.