Stanford University is launching a five-year pilot program that will provide $5,000 in discretionary funding annually to each of its 220 tenured and tenure-track faculty in the humanities. Stanford President John Hennessy announced the plan at the school's Nov. 30 Faculty Senate meeting.
The plan was inspired by dialogue between Hennessy and various faculty groups at the university, said Maria Riasanovsky, academic program associate for the humanities. "He asked what (the faculty's) chief need was, and they kept pressing for funding and research support," she said.
Stanford's humanities faculty could previously apply for $1,000 in discretionary funding a year. Riasanovsky said the step up to $5,000 will "make a huge difference."
Riasanovsky estimated the total cost to be approximately $500,000 to $600,000. However, if each of Stanford's 220 humanities faculty are awarded the grants, costs would add up to $1.1 million.
Stanford's funding program stands out among other universities' research support for the humanities. The program has received significant media attention since its announcement not only because of its size, but also because funding is automatically granted every year. Riasanovsky said she is not aware of any other program that provides such a high level of funding to all humanities faculty annually without requiring an application. "There's nothing else like it," she said.
In a similar program that has been in place for several years, Columbia provides $1,750 annually in automatic funding to its humanities faculty and $2,000 to junior faculty.
Riasonovsky acknowledged that Stanford's automatic grants are in part designed to raise the stature of humanities programs at a university principally known for its strength in the sciences.
Along with the yearly $5,000 in discretionary funding, Stanford is launching a $1.1 million fund for collaborative research in the humanities. The two plans complement each other because they provide support for both individual, small-scale projects as well as interdisciplinary, large-scale projects. "The hope is that this plan will inspire projects that cross disciplines and pull together all four corners of the university," Riasanovsky said.
The automatic grants for humanities faculty are in addition to a program that gives assistant professors a $5,000 grant the year they are hired, a $5,000 grant when they are reappointed and an additional $10,000 if awarded tenure.
Competition in funding facultyFunding humanities faculty, who garner significantly less external money than those in the sciences, is quickly becoming another facet of the intense competition among universities. Riasanovsky added that the humanities are in special need of internal funding support because "there simply aren't that many funding sources available."
"Research grants in the humanities are relatively scarce - not entirely non-existent, however, and Brown faculty have done quite well in securing grants from the (National Endowment for the Humanities) and the Mellon Foundation - and so it becomes critical that universities commit their own funds," Brown Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P'07 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Stanford's program was probably "prompted by a sense that the existing level of support for research in the humanities is not adequate," he added.
At Brown, humanities and social sciences faculty may apply to the Office of the Vice President for Research for up to $2,000 per year of funding to support their work. Typically, about half the faculty who apply receive an award, according to the office's Web site.
"We also have a faculty travel fund, open to faculty in all disciplines, which provides up to $1,000 per year in travel funds," Vohra said.
The Cogut Center for the Humanities also awards eight semester-long fellowships each year, providing support for faculty to take a semester away from teaching to focus on research. Vohra wrote that "while individual research funds are very useful, it is also essential to provide institutional and infrastructural support for nurturing research in the humanities."
Vohra said the University is aware of increased competition in funding humanities research. "Our recent progress in supporting research, generally ... could be characterized as an attempt to catch up with our peers," he wrote. "There is absolutely no cause for complacency. We will continue to look for ways to enhance faculty research and to remain competitive."
