The charter document for the National Endowment for the Humanities clarifies that the endowment is not general but designated for the Humanities Program. In an effort to add clarity and transparency to the availability and distribution of those funds, which amount to $50-$60K per year, the following allotment and procedure has been established by the NEH Distinguished Professor in consultation with the deans and the Humanities Program leadership. The amounts reflect the allotment per year.
1.) $10,000 for NEH Distinguished Professor’s project
2.) $10,000 for NEH Distinguished Professor discretionary priorities/possibilities
- Faculty development in support of community building
- Bridge building initiatives across different areas of campus
- Speakers, travel, and pedagogical initiatives related to internationalizing/decolonizing curriculum (up to $500, larger requests will be routed to committee, see below)
3.) $10,000 for HUM Program director discretionary priorities/possibilities
- Speakers and performers for HUM lectures – in consultation with course coordinators and the dean overseeing the HUM Program
- Funding related to Affiliate projects – in consultation with course coordinators and the dean
- HUM Fellows materials support
- Additional costs associated with new Readers
4.) Criteria and procedure for allocation of remaining $20,000-$30,000
- Decisions will be made by a committee (NEH Funding Council) composed of NEH professor, HUM director, dean overseeing Humanities Program, and on an annually rotating basis, one HUM coordinator and one tenured faculty member active in the program, chosen by the HUM Advisory Committee from volunteers. Members will recuse themselves from consideration of proposals that benefit them.
- Proposals/requests for funding will be reviewed every two weeks.
- Proposals/requests for funding will be sent to the HUM/NEH administrative assistant via Google form.
- Maximum amount of funding considered will be $5000.
- Priorities for funding include:
- Speakers that benefit HUM curriculum and/or cultural events
- Programming that benefits HUM curriculum and/or cultural events
- Research-related support and conference travel for regular contributors teaching HUM courses
- Conferences hosted by UNCA faculty on our campus that benefit HUM students
- Pedagogical activities in HUM courses
- Faculty development/enrichment, learning circles, activities
At year end, a public report will be made available that lists successfully funded requests. Awarded amounts must be spent by the end of the fiscal year/three months from the end of the project deadline, or they revert back to the fund. Reapplications will be considered, but not automatically awarded. For the purposes of receipts and documentation, the end of the fiscal year is May 31.
The HUM/NEH administrative assistant will serve as the primary contact for requests from categories 2, 3 or 4 of the NEH funds. This will avoid duplicate requests made to different parts of the fund and facilitates rerouting of the request to the most appropriate category and reviewer(s) when necessary.
For faculty teaching in the HUM Program who are requesting conference or research related funding, priority will be given to those who have not received funding from NEH or other sources recently for similar endeavors. If a person is granted funding, they will be expected to informally share some component of what they have conducted research on with other HUM faculty (in a HUM gathering, faculty meeting, as part of a retreat or other event).
Funding requests should include a description of what is to be funded, amount requested/budget, other funding sources requested (granted/denied), NEH funds received in the past 5 years, benefits for the HUM Program and plans for how to connect the proposed event/program with HUM Program students, faculty and/or curriculum (not just a “cultural event”), and contact person responsible for managing the expenditure. Requests will begin to be accepted July 1, and should be submitted as follows:
Category 2: Send to cryden@unca.edu and wbares@unca.edu
Category 3: Send to cryden@unca.edu and rchapman@unca.edu
Category 4: Submit via google form.
NEH Funding Council
The faculty serving on the NEH Funding Council for 2023-24 are:
NEH Distinguished Professor: Dr. Bill Bares
Humanities Program Director: Prof. Reid Chapman
Dean of Humanities: Dr. Tracey Rizzo
Humanities Coordinator:
Active Humanities Tenured Faculty: