College of Humanities and Fine Arts

Fostering Excellence through Collaborative Work
and New Initiatives

CHFA Visioning Grants 2008-2009

Request for Proposals

The Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts (CHFA), Joel Martin, is pleased to launch the CHFA Visioning Grants. This new initiative is designed to support high-quality, innovative, and exciting projects which foster excellence and collaborative activity by CHFA faculty and departmental units. The key purposes for the Visioning Grants are to highlight areas of excellence within the college, fill critical intellectual and programmatic gaps in the CHFA, and to identify and fund excellent initiatives that otherwise might be underdeveloped.

Fostering Excellence through New Initiatives

This year’s visioning themes are:

- Collaborative Research and Creative Activity
- Innovative Ways to Enhance Student Success
- Humanities and Fine Arts’ Impact in the Community

Why Visioning

We in the humanities and fine arts should take a proactive approach to highlighting and presenting our valuable and innovative intellectual, pedagogical, and outreach contributions to the various constituent communities in which and for which we work. We should develop—for the local, national and international communities where our students will work and where we as faculty interact—a vision for our roles as scholars, teachers, and participants in the university community. We, then, are embarking on a process for shaping and presenting our vision for excellence. The focus of our vision this year is on expanding how we are seen as well as how we see ourselves producing excellence through collaborative work and new initiatives in the humanities and fine arts at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

How It Works

Faculty in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts can contribute to fostering excellence by developing visioning grant proposals for a new project, operational process, center or initiative that will enhance the capacity of CHFA and its various departments to achieve national renown in research, student success, and community engagement.

In order to facilitate an open yet efficient proposal review process, Dean Joel Martin has formed the Visioning Steering Committee (VSC) to guide the visioning process. This group of CHFA faculty, along with librarians and staff from relevant divisions (e.g. Research and Faculty Development) of the University community, will serve as a clearinghouse for information on the visioning process, review proposals, and recommend support for successful proposals.

During the first stage of the process, the VSC will solicit one-page concept proposals which present a narrative outline for projects that address the three identified initiative areas or visioning themes. These proposals may present requests for college-level support in the form of seed money, Dean’s office endorsement or sponsorship, or college-level publicity. Examples of support other than grant funding might include helping to secure conference space, highlighting a project on the CHFA website, prominent placement in CHFA literature, and other similar non-monetary support. The committee also will review the one-page concept proposals and, where appropriate, make recommendations for linking similar projects to strengthen collaborative activity.

For those projects requesting funds, the committee will recommend that the project leaders on successful concept proposals submit five-page (5) project proposals with more detailed information for the second stage of the visioning process.

While the dollar amounts awarded to fund each grant will vary, the VSC will accept proposals which request funding in the following categories:

- Small grants up to $2,000
- Medium grants $2,000 – $10,000
- Large grants $10,000 – $25,000
- Exceptional proposals over $25,000

A successful CHFA Visioning Grant proposal must

  1. be collaborative
  2. address one or more of the visioning grant themes
  3. demonstrate project completion or sustainability beyond the Visioning Grant funding
  4. propose a project that would not come to fruition were it not for the support of a CHFA Visioning Grant

CHFA visioning proposals will be evaluated on the extent to which projects meet at least one or more of the following criteria:

  • Build and support new and/or stronger research/teaching/service-outreach connections beyond the departmental level so that significant enhancement occurs that otherwise would not.
  • Facilitate inventive ways to support faculty research (examples might include centers or institutes)

  • Provide funding for expanding support for teaching assistants beyond the numbers available through the current CHFA funding process
  • Encourage undergraduate student engagement in research and creative activity at early stages in their academic life
  • Showcase to external constituencies the value of work done by CHFA faculty and students
  • Raise our national and international profile, allowing the CHFA to recruit the best and most diverse students and faculty

    • Application and Review Process

    Prior to the formal application and review process, the Visioning Steering Committee will hold exploratory informational sessions to guide applicants through the process and to direct them to resources which might enhance the success of the proposal. The VSC will review proposals in four stages:

  • Project Concept Précis: one (1) page, double-spaced, 12 point font; and visioning grant cover sheet.

    • Briefly describe the project and locate it within one of the CHFA Visioning Grant initiatives; state the desired type and level of CHFA support. In order to help proposal writers focus on the visioning themes or identify potential collaboration partners, the VSC will provide feedback, before December 14th, on the one-page concept proposals.
    Due: 29 October 2007

  • The Visioning Steering Committee will announce projects which have been selected for expanded Visioning Grants proposals:
    14 December 2007

  • Project Proposal: five (5) pages; and supporting materials

    Upon the recommendation of the Visioning Steering Committee, project leaders for selected concept proposals will be asked to submit a detailed five-page proposal which should be developed as follows: expand the description of the project; identify each of the CHFA Visioning Grant themes on which the proposal is focused; explain how the proposed project meets the goals of the desired visioning theme; explain the plans for completion or sustainability; identify any anticipated challenges and the plans for meeting those challenges; attach a detailed budget; submit brief letters from the chair/head/director of the vital collaboration partners (the academic or administrative units which are required for the success of the project); attach a brief, two-page curriculum vitae for each project partner. Additionally, at the conclusion of your project, you will be asked to provide a brief report evaluating and describing your results.
    Due: 4 February 2008

  • The VSC reviews and ranks proposals and makes recommendations to Dean Joel Martin by Mid-March 2008

    The CHFA Visioning Grants will not fund the following types of proposals:

  • Individual research projects
  • Faculty release time
  • Intra-departmental collaborative projects which do not reach beyond the department
  • Proposals from project leaders other than faculty or departments in the CHFA

    All one-page project concept précis and five-page project proposals should be submitted electronically (Word or PDF) by the deadlines listed above and to the following email address: visioning@hfa.umass.edu.

    For additional details please visit the CHFA Fostering Excellence web page at www.umass.edu/hfa/visioning.