ORCID
ORCID offers a persistent digital identifier (an ORCID iD) that you as an individual scholar own and control, and that distinguishes you from every other researcher. ORCID is being implemented by publishers around the world. In some countries with centralized funding structures, ORCID is in even greater use than it is in the United States. Ten million researchers have created their own ORCIDs.
Learn more about ORCID at https://orcid.org/
ACLS is joining higher education organizations and funders in encouraging the use of ORCID, which will strengthen academic infrastructure and our relationships with constituencies throughout the academic world.
The benefits for scholars are numerous: having a persistent ID for applicants and fellows could be helpful to scholars whose scholarly record is attributed differently over time (due to differences between Roman and non-Roman characters or because a scholar’s name changes as a result of marriage, divorce, or transitions in gender identification). Faculty with adjunct or other contract employment also benefit from having a persistent and non-institutionally based identity, since institutions do not follow any standard record-keeping on their public websites.
In future years, we hope to integrate more of an applicant’s ORCID record data into the application process, saving them time and effort. For now, we believe that simply requiring ORCID registration is a great first step.
While it only takes a minute to sign up for an account, we advise applicants for ACLS fellowships and grants to register with ORCID before beginning their online applications.
No, not for the purposes of the current ACLS fellowship and grant competitions. You should control your ORCID privacy settings in the way that makes you most comfortable. You can review ORCID’s full privacy policy at https://info.orcid.org/privacy-policy/.
You are only required to register for the ID; how much information you add to your profile is entirely up to you. You can learn more about the benefits of having and using an ORCID profile at https://info.orcid.org/benefits-for-researchers/.
Eligibility
The Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowships support research projects that address topics in the humanities or social sciences and/or teaching and learning in those disciplines. In order for social science applications to be eligible, they must employ predominantly humanistic approaches and qualitative/interpretive methodologies. The ultimate goal(s) of the project can include scholarly articles, book chapters, or a monograph; course plans; textbooks; exhibitions; community or campus events; online resources; etc. Competitive projects will include substantial original research.
This program does not fund creative work or the performing arts (e.g., novels, films, performance, or musical composition), nor social science research that involves predominantly quantitative and/or experimental methods.
This program funds both academic research that aims to make original contributions to knowledge within humanities fields and projects that engage in scholarly inquiry into student learning and the practice of teaching. If the project addresses teaching and learning, it must focus on a postsecondary context. Projects that focus on teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms are not eligible. Similarly, if the project outcomes are curricula, course plans, textbooks, or other teaching-related material, these must be for use in a higher education setting and not in K-12 classrooms.
These fellowships fund an individual scholar, not a project. However, individuals may apply to complete a portion of a collaborative project, as long as the applicant’s role in the project is distinct and clearly laid out in the proposal.
Yes, an applicant for this fellowship may also apply to as many fellowship and grant programs as are suitable. However, not more than one ACLS or ACLS-joint award may normally be accepted in any one competition year.
Yes, you may apply if you have an MS in an eligible social science field.
A Doctor of Education degree is not on its own an eligible degree for this program. If you hold an EdD, you may still be eligible if you satisfy the following two criteria:
- most of the courses you teach are in the humanities or related social sciences, and
- your project employs predominantly humanistic approaches and contributes to the humanities or the humanistic social sciences.
If you are unsure about whether you satisfy these criteria, please email [email protected] with your name, institution, department, degree, a list of recent courses you have taught in the humanities and/or social sciences, and a brief description of your project.
A Master of Fine Arts is not on its own an eligible degree for this program, and this program does not support creative projects. However, if you hold an MFA, you may still be eligible if you satisfy the following two criteria:
- most of the courses you teach are in the humanities or related social sciences, and
- your project employs predominantly humanistic approaches and contributes to the humanities or the humanistic social sciences.
If you are unsure about whether you satisfy these criteria, please email [email protected] with your name, institution, department, degree, a list of recent courses you have taught in the humanities and/or social sciences, and a brief description of your project.
If you have an MA or PhD in a field other than those listed as eligible, you may still be eligible if you satisfy the following two criteria:
- most of the courses you teach are in the humanities or related social sciences, and
- your project employs predominantly humanistic approaches and contributes to the humanities or the humanistic social sciences.
If you are unsure about whether you satisfy these criteria, please email [email protected] with your name, institution, department, MA/PhD degree, a list of recent courses you have taught in the humanities and/or social sciences, and a brief description of your project.
You do not have to be a US citizen or a US permanent resident. However, you must be employed at a two-year associate’s degree-granting college located in the United States.
Yes, if your institution is designated as a Baccalaureate/Associate’s College according to the Carnegie Basic Classifications, you are eligible to apply.
No, you do not have to have a full-time or tenure-track appointment to be eligible.
Being “employed primarily” as a community college instructor means that your primary source of income is from teaching at a community college.
A Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship cannot be deferred to the following academic year. Fellowship tenure is for a period of 18 consecutive months, from July 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023. Tenure must conclude by December 31, 2023.
Online Fellow Application Process
No, you will need to start over with a new online application.
This will vary, depending on how much work you have prepared before you begin the application process. Simply filling in the form will probably take an hour if not two, plus you will need to submit your proposal and supporting documents. You will also need to secure referees to write letters in support of your application, as well as a senior administrator to complete the institutional statement. We highly recommend that you start the process several weeks before the deadline to get a sense of what is required and start preparing your materials.
No, you may work on it in multiple sessions, though you will need to save your work after you finish each section of the application. Once you have submitted the application, you cannot work on it again.
The deadline to submit completed applications for this fellowship is 9 pm, Eastern Daylight Time, October 27, 2021.
No, your application will be judged as it is at the time of submission.
Notifications and other correspondence are sent via email from “acls.org” addresses. In order to prevent ACLS emails from being blocked, we suggest that applicants and letter writers:
- Add the relevant ACLS email addresses (e.g., [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] for letter writers) to their address book or safe senders list.
- Check spam or junk mail folder for notifications and correspondence, if you are expecting them.
- In the event that you continue not to receive ACLS emails in either your inbox or spam/junk folder, it may be that your institution (“.edu”) or internet service provider (“.com” or “.net” email) is blocking these emails before they reach you. Please contact the appropriate personnel, e.g., your IT department, so that they may resolve the issue.
Application Requirements
Your proposal narrative should be a concise statement describing your project. It should explain, briefly but specifically, what you plan to do and why, progress you have already made, the project’s background and significance, your methodology and research plan, and the project’s outcomes. Please balance the description of specific work plans against an overview of your goals and the project’s contributions. Please refer to the sample proposal outline for suggestions about what to include in your proposal and how to organize it. You may also find helpful this essay by a former ACLS program officer about writing successful proposals. In addition, you may review these past successful proposals:
William Morgan, “Tobacco as Freedom: Cuban Slavery and Self-Purchase in the Nineteenth-Century”
Your project timeline with budget estimates should specify the location and approximate duration of each activity related to the project, as well as the estimated allocation of funds for each activity, and is best formatted as a table. You may budget for items including salary replacement during the summer; course buyouts during the academic year; travel costs and registration fees for research and conferences; costs associated with organizing a conference, workshop, or event; fees related to publication or dissemination; stipends for undergraduate research assistants; costs for course materials (if one of the outcomes of the project is curricular); etc. In some cases, a limited portion of the funds may go to a fellow’s institution to cover administrative costs associated with the project. Applicants are encouraged to propose budgets that use the full $40,000 available.
Please refer to the sample project timeline with budget estimates for a suggested model.
Your bibliography should list an overview of essential references for your project and should balance the various sorts of key materials being used, e.g., primary sources and secondary texts. The bibliography must not exceed one page and should be double-spaced between entries.
Reference Letters and Institutional Communications
Your main priority should be to secure letters from referees who can write strong, specific letters on your behalf, preferably those who can comment on the proposed project. Reviewers often prefer “arm’s length” letters from individuals who can attest to the significance of your work and have less personal interest vested in your success. It’s good to be able to show that your work has been recognized outside the department or institution where you are employed or did your graduate work. Think carefully about who can write the best letters and weigh that against personal connections. Applicants at early career stages will tend to rely more on graduate school advisers and colleagues as advocates.
No, but note that the deadline for reference letters is the same as the application deadline. The system will continue to accept letters for a few days after the deadline and will add them to your application at the earliest possible time, though we cannot guarantee that they will accompany your application in the first stage of review.
You should check online to see if your references have been submitted. If one or more of your letters has not been submitted by the deadline, you may wish to contact the letter writers. If one of your designated referees cannot write the letter, you can ask someone else to write for you and submit the appropriate information on your reference form. However, please note that once the required number of letters has been submitted for your application (regardless of which of your referees submits them), no more will be accepted. Think carefully, then, before requesting replacement letters. You would not want to put a referee in the position of writing a letter for you and then not being able to submit it.
No. ACLS requests that reference letters contain specific elements targeted to this fellowship program. Peer reviewers have expressed strong reservations about letters from dossier services since they are necessarily general and thus less helpful in assessing the merits of the proposed project. This information is particularly crucial for proposals that reach the final round of selection where they are evaluated by multi-disciplinary committees. ACLS understands the demands placed on senior scholars and has sought to moderate that burden by reducing both the required number and the length of reference letters to minimum essential levels.
The institutional certification should be filled out by your department chair, dean, or other senior administrator. While there is no prohibition against this being the same person as one of your reference letter writers, it would be preferable if it were not.
Yes, upon request, ACLS program officers are happy to communicate with your college administrator to answer questions and clarify the fellowship requirements and opportunities. To start this process, please reach out to us at [email protected].
To help ensure fellows are supported in the program, ACLS provides awardees a social media kit they can share with their administrators to help announce the award; materials for administrators (upon request) to detail the award’s parameters and significance; virtual networking and workshop opportunities during the fellowship tenure; and an in-person convening for fellows (public health conditions permitting).
Review Process
Proposals will be reviewed by peer reviewers who are faculty at community colleges or faculty at four-year colleges and universities who are familiar with the circumstances for research at community colleges and career trajectories of community college faculty. Proposals will be evaluated in two stages. At the first stage, two to three reviewers in your field will judge your proposal. The first stage of review determines which applications will go on to the final stage. At that point, applications are reviewed by a panel of reviewers from disciplines across the humanities and social sciences.
To address those familiar with your field, explain why this project offers insight into the issues of your discipline, and make clear what question or problem is being addressed. In addition, be sure to explain any terms that might not be familiar to those outside your field or subfield, and discuss the significance of your project within your field and within the humanities more generally.
The portion of the proposal that should be devoted to its constituent parts varies according to the proposed project. An important part of the application process is gauging the most central elements of your project and presenting those elements to your best advantage within the specified page limit.
If a portion of these funds will be used toward course buyouts, please indicate that in the project timeline with budget estimates and include the cost per course. If these funds will simply be compensating you for your time (e.g., to replace courses you might usually teach over the summer or to supplement a reduced course load if you are not full-time), please indicate that as well.
As with all of our programs, there is no one model to follow for a successful application, and those that are ultimately selected vary widely. To see projects that have been funded so far, you may view previous awardees and brief descriptions of their projects, including their project titles and abstracts, here. We cannot provide examples of proposals, and the application itself is updated each year, but you may benefit from reviewing Writing Proposals for ACLS Fellowship Competitions by Christina M. Gillis.
Yes, you may request feedback generated through ACLS’s peer review process by writing to [email protected] with the subject line “Request for feedback –” followed by your full name, e.g. “Request for feedback – Jane Q. Applicant.” Requests for comments from the 2021-22 competition must be received by June 30, 2022.
Due to the number of requests ACLS receives each year, and the work of administering new fellowships each spring, we do not begin processing feedback until the summer, after the competition year is complete. Thank you for your patience.
Please also note that feedback is made available at the discretion of each reviewer. Comments may not be available from every reviewer who assessed your application. We encourage peer reviewers to provide constructive feedback to applicants looking to improve on their ideas or how they express those ideas; comments are not an explanation or rationale for why an application was not selected for an award. Such feedback also is not intended to be directions that, if followed, would lead necessarily to greater success in future competitions. After all, the pool of reviewers changes every year, as does the pool of applications.
Stipend
The fellowship is awarded to an individual scholar. ACLS can arrange payment of the full stipend or a portion of the stipend through the scholar’s institution upon request. However, institutions may not deduct funds for overhead or indirect costs from the individual’s fellowship. For more information, review Information for Institutional Administrators.
ACLS fellowships do not cover overhead or indirect costs. However, a portion of the stipend for this program may cover direct costs of the proposed fellowship activities. One example of this would be the instructor replacement cost to the institution if the applicant proposes a release from teaching responsibilities. Other examples, depending on the activities, may include office expenses, equipment and room rental fees, or staff time. Overall, up to 20 percent of the stipend may be used to defray the costs of the award for the institution. Please email [email protected] if you have questions about whether any specific direct costs would qualify.