Associate Professor Fellowships

The Associate Professor Fellowships enable up to five associate professors to devote the spring term to a research project of their choosing. Each applicant is also asked to propose a counterpart researcher—in any department, discipline, or school other than the applicant's own—with whom he or she would value regular conversation. The counterpart may be of any rank, and the applicant and counterpart may or may not have worked together previously. Both the Fellows and their counterparts are part of a larger group that meets approximately six times during the semester for working lunches devoted to the presentation of the Fellow’s research.

Within three years of the completion of the grant, it is expected that the Fellow will teach an undergraduate course related to the project (an interdisciplinary seminar or a junior seminar) or propose another kind of learning opportunity for undergraduates.

Eligibility

Any UC Berkeley associate professor with a humanities-related research topic is eligible to apply to the Initiative Fellowships. Neither the applicant nor the topic area need be located in a department within the Arts and Humanities Division. Associate professor applicants may be at any career stage but must have been tenured for at least one year. Only in exceptional cases may an Initiative Fellowship immediately precede or follow a leave of more than one semester.

Grant Provision

The Townsend Center expects to furnish replacement costs at Assistant Professor II level to the Fellow’s home department. The Fellow will continue to receive the normal salary. Pending final approval, Fellows will continue to accrue sabbatical credit over the term of the grant. Service arrangements should be worked out between the Fellow and his or her Chair. Counterparts receive a research stipend of $2,000. They are expected to attend the group meetings and to converse sufficiently with their Fellow so that they can share the presentation of the Fellow’s research project to the larger group. The hope is that some pairs will continue the interaction even beyond the official term of the grant.

The application deadline for 2009-2010 is January 15, 2009.

For information about the 2008-2009 Associate Professor Fellows, click here.

For questions about the program, please contact Associate Director Teresa Stojkov
at tstojkov@berkeley.edu.