American Council of Learned Societies Project Grants for HBCU Faculty 2025 (Up to $10,000 grants)

The American Council of Learned Societies invites applications for the 2025 ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty. The grants of up to $10,000 support early-stage project design as well as smaller-scale project development that can be completed within the 12- to 15-month award tenure. These grants may be used to complete exploratory research, advance an existing or established project to its next stage of development, and/or serve as a formative next step for future funding opportunities. In addition to the grant stipend, awardees will have access to networking and mentorship opportunities that align with their scholarly goals and institutional circumstances.

This fellowship opportunity is part of the ACLS HBCU Faculty Fellowship and Grant Program, which offers both project grants and longer-term fellowships to HBCU faculty. Please review our program page for information about both award types and to determine which opportunity is right for your project.

We encourage you to sign up to receive updates about informational webinars, opportunities to participate in proposal development workshops, and other program news.

• Table of Content
• About American Council of Learned Societies
• ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty
• Aim and Benefits of ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty
• ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty Courses
• Requirements for ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty Qualification
• Interview date, Process and Venue for ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty
• Application Deadline
• How to Apply

About American Council of Learned Societies

Formed in 1919, ACLS is a nonprofit federation of 81 scholarly organizations. As the preeminent representative of American scholarship in the humanities and interpretive social sciences, ACLS holds a core belief that knowledge is a public good.

ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty

Application Deadline	06 Nov 2024
Value	$10,000 USD
Country to study	United States
School to study	Historically black colleges and universities
Type	Fellowship
Course to study	View courses
Sponsor	American Council of Learned Societies
Gender	Men and Women

Aim and Benefits of ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty

• Stipend: Up to $10,000 grants to be used for any activities that advance the proposed project, including (but not limited to) course releases, travel to collections or conferences, research and editorial support, and child- or eldercare support that enables project engagement.

• Each project grant comes with an additional grant of $2,500 to the awardee’s home institution to support humanities programming or infrastructure.

• Applicants who advance to the finalist round of review will receive a $500 grant to support their research, in addition to access to project and proposal development workshops in 2025.

ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty Courses

• Research

Requirements for ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty Qualification

Applicants must:

• Be employed primarily as instructors at an institution designated as an Historically Black College or University. (Please consult this list to determine whether your institution is eligible.) Applicants do not need to be appointed full time and do not need to be on the tenure track. Part-time and adjunct instructors are welcome to apply. All awardees must remain employed at an accredited HBCU for the duration of the award term.
• Have an MA or PhD in the humanities or related social sciences that was conferred by the application deadline.
• Agree to take part in occasional networking, project development, and mentorship events during the course of the award term.

Projects must:

• Address a topic in the humanities or social sciences and/or teaching and learning in those disciplines in a higher education setting.
• Employ predominantly humanistic approaches and qualitative/interpretive methodologies.
• Include original scholarly research.

Interview date, Process and Venue for ACLS Project Grants for HBCU Faculty

ACLS believes that humanistic scholarship benefits from inclusivity of voices, narratives, and subjects that have historically been underrepresented or under-studied in academe. We especially welcome applications from scholars from historically underrepresented communities in the academy, including (but not limited to) Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous communities from around the world; people with disabilities; queer, trans, and gender nonconforming people; and people of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. We also believe that institutional diversity enhances the scholarly enterprise, and we encourage applications from all types of institutions represented among HBCUs, including both two-year and four-year degree granting institutions.

Peer reviewers are asked to be mindful of ACLS’s commitment to inclusive excellence, and of how equity and diversity are integral components of merit. In addition, reviewers in this program are asked to evaluate all eligible proposals on the following criteria:

• The potential of the project to engage successfully with the field or fields of study in which it is proposed and make a meaningful contribution to scholarship, teaching and learning, and/or public understanding.
• The quality of the proposal with regard to its methodology, scope, workplan, and clarity of expression.
• The feasibility of the project, including the proposed timeline and budget.
• The appropriateness of the project (i.e., scope and/or stage of development) for the type of funding sought.
• The potential of the award to advance ACLS’s commitment to inclusive excellence, which is based on the principle that humanistic scholarship benefits from institutional diversity and the inclusion of voices that have been historically underrepresented in the academy due to race, gender, class and other aspects of identity.

Application Deadline

November 6, 2024

How to Apply

Interested and qualified? Go to American Council of Learned Societies on ofa.acls.org to apply

ACLS is now accepting applications for this program via our online application system

Applications must be submitted online and must include the components listed below. All uploads must have margins of one inch on all sides, formatted in Arial or Helvetica 11-point font. Applicants may use any standard citation style in their proposal narrative, although citations (footnotes or endnotes) are included in the page count. Applications that do not adhere to stated formatting guidelines will be excluded from review.

• Completed application form (this includes basic biographical information, as well as short-answer questions regarding your journey as a scholar, research interests, teaching responsibilities, and institutional context).
• Proposal detailing the project’s research base and goals; work already undertaken (if any); and resources needed to complete the project (no more than two pages double spaced including any footnotes or endnotes).
• Optional: Up to one page of images or figures, if needed.
• A brief personal statement describing your journey as a scholar and how personal experience, scholarly influences, and broader research interests inform your proposed project (one page, double spaced).
• A bibliography (one page, single spaced, with separate sections detailing primary sources – if applicable – and secondary literature).
• A one-page workplan detailing work to be conducted during award tenure. (Review the suggested guidelines for this application component.)
• A basic budget. (ACLS provides a sample template for reference.)

No reference letters or institutional statements of support are required as part of the initial application. Successful applicants will be asked to submit institutional certification pledging that the applicant will be permitted to carry out the work outlined in the proposal. This brief form will be made available to provisional awardees and will be completed by a department chair, dean, or other senior administrator as part of the confirmation of the award.

Please see the FAQ for more details on the format and content of each piece of the application. Applicants are encouraged to draw on application resources, such as webinars and informational sessions.

For more details visit: ACLS website.