Program Offers Grants for Faculty and Departments

With the support of a completely external grant from the Lilly Endowment, the Program for Leadership and Character is offering a variety of grants to support faculty and departments who wish to engage with leadership and character development, broadly understood. Grants are available for faculty and departments in both the College and the Professional Schools.

  • Departmental Grants (up to $3,000) provide funds for an academic department, program, or school to engage leadership and character creatively with faculty, students, and staff. Pending public health advisories and university policies in light of COVID-19, these one-year grants could support a variety of activities, including but not limited to:

Depending on the University’s decisions about the upcoming year in light of COVID-19, these activities may be conducted either in person or online.

Departments may apply here by July 1, 2020. Recipients will be notified by July 15. Departments will be expected to submit a short report detailing how they used the funds by June 30, 2021.

  • Course Development and Redesign Grants ($4,000 or $1,000) support individual faculty in the College or Professional Schools who are interested in integrating leadership and character into their disciplinary or interdisciplinary offerings. Through a partnership with the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, recipients will have the opportunity to learn more about intentional course design, apply research-based strategies to support the holistic development of students, and work with faculty and staff experts to design and assess new courses or modules in their department. Applications are encouraged from faculty who wish to approach leadership and character from a variety of disciplines, professions, traditions, or perspectives.

Grants are available in two forms:

  • Course Development Grants ($4,000) to develop a new course
  • Course Redesign Grants ($1,000) to redesign a course or develop a new course module or unit

In addition to these grant funds, faculty will receive relevant books and teaching resources and will have access to up to $500 to purchase materials needed to design, prepare, or teach the course. Grant recipients will be expected to attend a summer course development workshop series, tentatively scheduled during the week of July 7 (July 7-9 if held in person, July 7-10 if held online). Recipients will continue to design their course or unit on their own and share ideas and feedback with fellow recipients. Recipients will be expected to submit a copy of the new syllabus or lesson plan by the end of the summer and complete a brief survey and reflection about what they learned throughout the process by August 15, 2020.

Faculty may apply here by June 10, 2020. Recipients will be notified by June 15.

At a time when other funding sources may be limited because of COVID-19, the Program is grateful that this external grant from the Lilly Endowment enables us to provide additional financial support to faculty and academic departments.