ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowships and Grants

The American Council of Learned Societies invites applications for the HBCU Faculty Fellowship and Grant Program. HBCUs are a vital component of the higher education ecosystem with a distinguished record of teaching and research contributions to the academic humanities and interpretive social sciences. This program supports the work of faculty at HBCUs by providing awards that attend to the specific teaching, research, and service contexts of their institutions. The program is the result of an extensive series of listening sessions and consultations with HBCU faculty and administrators from a wide range of institutions about opportunities and needs for research support at their colleges and universities.

Based on these consultations, the program will offer two types of awards to advance HBCU faculty scholarship:

1. Grants of up to $10,000 for research project development, with a grant term of 12 to 15 months (starting June 1, 2024, and concluding no later than August 31, 2025).
2. Fellowships of up to $50,000 to support more sustained time and engagement with a significant research project, with an award term of 12 to 27 months (starting June 1, 2024, and ending no later than August 31, 2026).

For the 2023-2024 competition cycle, ACLS will award up to 12 grants and up to eight fellowships. Both award types allow applicants to structure their budgets and workplans in ways that best fit their research goals and professional commitments. The projects may be conducted in residence at the scholar’s home institution or at any other appropriate site for the advancement of the proposed work. While both fellowship and grant awards may support a range of project-related activities and costs, awardees of the fellowship will be required to take the equivalent of at least four course releases, two summers, or one semester of supported leave freed from regular teaching and/or service responsibilities. Because the program supports projects of different scopes and stages of development, ACLS encourages applicants to select the award type that best matches the goals, scale, and stage of their proposed projects. Applicants are encouraged to think about the specific needs of their project, as well as the roadblocks to project outcomes. Award funds may be used for anything that is necessary to advance the project.

In addition to the fellowship or grant stipend, each awardee will have access to networking and mentorship opportunities that align with their scholarly goals and institutional circumstances. For both fellowships and grants, each award also comes with an additional institutional grant of $2,500 to the awardee’s home institution to support humanities programming or infrastructure.

Applicants who advance to the finalist round of review will receive a $500 grant to support their research, in addition to access to project and proposal development workshops.

Application support
The ACLS HBCU program will provide opportunities for applicants to receive feedback and guidance during the application process. We invite you to attend informational webinars and office hours to learn more about the project grants and fellowships. These sessions are open to all. In addition, interested faculty have the option of applying to receive feedback on their proposal draft and to participate in proposal writing workshops to be held in the summer of 2023. These resources are intended to support applicants’ final submission to the grant or fellowship competitions and to create pathways for scholars at HBCUs to national and international research funding. Note that participation in these optional resources is not required to apply for a grant or fellowship, nor does it guarantee the receipt of a fellowship or grant award.

Eligibility
The basic eligibility criteria for both grant and fellowship applicants are outlined below, more details can be found on the individual competition pages. ACLS seeks to advance equity, justice, and inclusive excellence in all of our programs and initiatives. The ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship and Grant program especially welcomes applicants from historically underrepresented groups such as Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian American and Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaskan Native scholars, first generation college graduates, scholars from low-income backgrounds, formerly incarcerated scholars, queer and trans scholars, and scholars with disabilities. 

Applicants must:

• Be employed primarily as instructors at an institution designated as an Historically Black College or University. (Please consult this list to determine whether your institution is eligible.) Applicants do not need to be appointed full time and do not need to be on the tenure track. Part-time and adjunct instructors are welcome to apply. All awardees must remain employed at an accredited HBCU for the duration of the award term.
• Have an MA or PhD in the humanities or related social sciences that was conferred by the application deadline.
• Agree to take part in occasional networking, project development, and mentorship events during the course of the award term.

Projects must:

• Address a topic in the humanities or social sciences and/or teaching and learning in those disciplines in a higher education setting.
• Employ predominantly humanistic approaches and qualitative/interpretive methodologies.
• Include original scholarly research.
• Only be submitted to one of the year’s competitions, for fellowships or grants; the same project cannot be submitted for both awards.