Checking out the historical display at the “African Americans in Boston” conference, April 2009
Applicants’ and Awardees’ FAQs
Explain the application deadlines
What if the deadline falls on a Saturday or Sunday?
How far ahead of time may I apply for funding for a project?
Do you accept off-cycle applications?
How do I use your online applications?
How should my referees submit their letters of recommendation?
Can students apply for money for a student activity?
Do you offer post-doctoral fellowships?
I received an Award. Is there anything I need to know to process my award?
I want to invite a foreign national to do something on campus as part of my project. How can I make sure that he/she can get paid?
Who can apply?
The BUCH welcomes proposals from individual BU faculty members, or from groups of faculty within a department, program, or interdisciplinary group. In all cases the main applicant must be a BU faculty member. We do not accept fellowship, project, library, or publication applications from students or staff members. Students may only apply for awards in the category “Student Awards.”
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Explain the application deadlines
The Boston University Center for the Humanities offers many different programs, and we recognize that it can be difficult to keep up with the deadlines. For over thirty years, the BUCH had a single deadline for Humanities Enhancement projects, usually 1 March. Proposals submitted in March described events taking place in the next academic year. Since academic year 2009–10, there have been two opportunities to apply for Project Awards, as opposed to the one annual opportunity offered in the past.
When we went to a two-deadline system, with proposals submitted on 15 November or on 15 February, our aim was to encourage our colleagues to plan even further in advance, and we have encouraged those planning events two or three years in advance to use the earlier deadline.
In an effort to make these deadlines as easy to remember as possible, we have established the following yearly deadlines.
The yearly application deadlines are as follows:
| Jeffrey Henderson Senior Research Fellowships for academic year 2012/2013 |
October 15, 2011 |
| Junior Faculty Fellowships for academic year 2012/2013 |
October 15, 2011 |
| Humanities Enhancement Project Awards for academic year 2012/2013 |
November 15, 2011 |
| Humanities Enhancement Project Awards for academic year 2012/2013 |
February 15, 2011 |
| Library Acquisition Awards for academic year 2012/2013 |
February 15, 2012 |
| Student Awards for the current year |
April 1, 2012 |
| Publication Production Awards |
Rolling deadline |
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What if the deadline falls on a Saturday or Sunday?
By setting all our deadlines on the first or fifteenth of the month, we will sometimes have a deadline that falls on a Saturday or Sunday. In that case, we shall expect all applications to reach us—either in hard copy or in electronic form—before 9 a.m. the following Monday morning. Please do not ask us to consider late applications. Supporting letters from chairs and other faculty should be sent to us directly and we will add them to your application. Please urge these people to send in the needed letters as quickly as possible.
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How far ahead of time may I apply for funding for a project?
The Center for the Humanities has set aside funds to be allocated up to three years in advance for large projects that require extensive advance planning. Early applications may be especially helpful in cases where the organizers are submitting grant proposals to outside funding sources and need to show an institutional commitment. If you are planning a project that will take place sometime after the next academic year, please make every effort to apply to us by the earlier deadline (November 15), especially if your request is a large one. We also welcome applications for events to take place in the next academic year on that earlier schedule, and will allocate significant funds at that time. Faculty planning projects with smaller budgets may use the later deadline (February 15). Regardless of when you apply, please furnish detailed plans and precise budgets. Experience has shown that the Executive Committee tends to respond negatively to vague estimates.
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Do you accept off-cycle applications?
The Center for the Humanities realizes that on occasion sudden opportunities appear that could not have been planned for ahead of time or within the time frame of our usual deadlines. In these cases, faculty should call or e-mail the office to let us know of a pending off-cycle application. Using the regular application form and procedure, please send us a complete application as soon as possible, with all supporting materials and a detailed budget. Be sure to include an explanation of why this proposal was not submitted in one of the two regular cycles. The Executive Committee will not consider off-cycle requests that do not include a complete application. Also, please note that because the budget is set one year in advance, Off-Cycle awards are usually small.
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How do I use your online applications?
The current application forms are interactive PDFs with writable fields which were created using Acrobat 9Pro. In order to use them you must have Acrobat Read/Write software. If you do not have write-capable software, open the PDF, print out the blank form, fill it out, and take it to your administrator to fill out on the computer. Most administrators have the complete software rather than the free read-only software.
If you do have read/write software, open the file and save it under a new name to your computer. Close our website and work on your saved application.
The BUCH application process has gone completely electronic. We request that you submit all materials as a single PDF file that contains all the required elements in the order in which they are listed on the application form. Supporting letters may be sent to BUCH directly and we will add them to your application.
Fill out the application and save it. Reopen it to confirm that everything has been saved. If it has, you can send it to the Center for the Humanities at buch@bu.edu.
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Since I am attaching a lengthy description of my project, can I just write “see attached” in the space for the abstract?
If you are filling out an application that has a space for an abstract, please type a 250-word abstract into that space. Please do not write “See attached.” We need to have an abstract on the application form/cover sheet. Since this is the abstract of your award application not an abstract of your research, please include a summary of why you are applying to us for money and what you plan to do with the award money. Please indicate what other departments or entities are supporting your project and when you are planning to carry it out.
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How should my referees submit their letters of recommendation?
If your award application requires letters of support or recommendation, you may ask your letter writers to send us their letters electronically as attachments. Many institutions and departments have created e-letterhead templates for this purpose. If your letter writer has access to e-letterhead for his or her department, that would be best. If she/he does not, please ask her/him to create a document which includes her/his full title, department, university and university address. The letter may be sent as a word document or as a PDF. Please ask each referee to send the letter directly to the Center for the Humanities at buch@bu.edu
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Can students apply for money for a student activity?
The short answer is no. The University provides money for student-sponsored activities through the Dean of Students, Student Organizations & Activities office. The Boston University Center for the Humanities does occasionally provide money for graduate student conferences or publications in various humanities departments. Such a conference or publication would be considered a Humanities Project and must be applied for by a faculty adviser of the department using the application form for Humanities Enhancement Projects and meeting the criteria and deadlines for those awards.
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Do you offer Post-doctoral Fellowships?
No. The Boston University Center for the Humanities Fellowships are restricted to tenured and tenure-track faculty of Boston University. Faculty with research projects in the area of the humanities may apply.
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I am a senior faculty member. What are the eligibility requirements for applying for the Henderson Senior Research Fellowship?
Senior faculty members are eligible to apply at two different times in the regular cycle of sabbatical leaves.
If you are eligible for an earned sabbatical next year and wish to extend that semester into a full year of research leave, you may apply to the Center to fund the second semester.
If you are between sabbatical leaves, you may apply to the Center to fund a semester’s leave of absence during the next academic year, in order to complete a research project in progress or to advance a new project already underway. Eligibility is determined as follows:
- In the fall semester of the application year, you must have completed at least four and no more than six semesters of teaching since your last sabbatical;
- At the time you take up your fellowship, you must have completed at least six and no more than eight semesters of teaching since your last sabbatical.
Holding a fellowship won in either of these cycles does not make you ineligible to apply in another cycle. All faculty applying for an SRF should have submitted good faith applications for outside funding and turned in the necessary Sabbatical/Leave of Absence paperwork (including copies of external funding applications) to the CAS Faculty Actions Office.
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I am a junior faculty member and held a Junior Faculty Fellowship in the past. May I apply for a second Junior Faculty Fellowship?
No. Since 2008, the policy of the Center for the Humanities is that a junior faculty member may only be awarded a Junior Faculty Fellowship once.
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What are the Student Awards?
Each year the Boston University Center for the Humanities gives awards ranging from $1,000 to $7,000 to distinguished undergraduate and graduate students. Students are both nominated by their departments or may submit an application individually. The Student Award application deadline is April 1 and the awards are given out in a ceremony the week before graduation in May. These awards are in recognition of outstanding academic work. They are not given to student organizations to support projects.
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I received an Award. Is there anything I need to know to process my award?
Yes, if you are a faculty member who received a Humanities Enhancement Award, a Library Acquisition Award, a Publication Production Award, or a Fellowship it would be helpful for you to read over the
If you received a Student Award, these do not pertain to you.
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I want to invite a foreign national to come to campus as part of my project. How can I make sure that he/she can get paid?
Thank you for asking. Paying non-US citizens, in any capacity, is a very labor intensive, time consuming task. Please consult with ISSO (617-353-3565) and the Payroll Office (Shaina Mackie 353-2270) before extending an invitation and honorarium offer to a visitor who is not a US citizen (for an honorarium or expenses). It is recommended that you receive a note from those offices to include with your requests to pay or reimburse international visitors. There is also other accompanying paperwork which must be filed. The person you wish to pay MUST have a visa designation that allows them to be paid by BU. International Scholars who have a visa to teach or do research at another institution do not necessarily have a Visa designation which allows them to accept money for speaking at other institutions. You MUST work out the visa situation before they come to BU. International student visas allow students to work on the campus at which they are enrolled but not on other campuses.