Dear Affiliated Faculty and Friends of EURO,
For those of you may not have heard the news, the Institute for European Studies is happy to announce its receipt of a four-year National Resource Center grant from the US Department of Education—approximately $840,000—as part of the Title VI grant competition. In existence since the late 1940s, Title VI funding is earmarked for the development of area studies. In this round Europe was the most competitive region despite having the smallest available pool of money.
Our successful proposal included a wide range of collaborative activities to support university-level research and teaching at IUB and with other institutions, as well as outreach to K-12, Ivy Tech, and minority-serving institutions such as IU—East and IU—South Bend.
The activities are too numerous to list here in their entirety, but I would like to make you aware of several faculty funding opportunities and one incentivized pedagogical initiative that solicits the input of affiliated faculty. First, the funding opportunities:
- $3,000 to purchase library materials (books, films, microfilms, etc.) related to European languages, literatures, films, art, history, etc. that can be used for research and teaching purposes. Purchase requests should come to me for initial approval (I will vet requests only to make sure that one person or unit is not spending the entire budget!), then I will forward to the appropriate librarian at the appropriate IU campus.
- International travel grants (4 grants of $1500 per year for four years, distributed in Fall and Spring competitions (2 grants each semester)
- Domestic travel grants (4 grants of $750 per year for four years, distributed in Fall and Spring competitions, 2 grants each semester)
The deadline for the Fall 2018 competition is Monday, November 5; the deadline for the Spring 2019 competition is Monday, March 25. Please see our website for details.
Now for the incentivized pedagogical initiative: development of a “Digital Toolbox”—or a series of thematically focused, self-contained modules that will be put online and shared in an open-access format with teachers across the country to further the teaching of European culture, society, and / or politics in all their manifestations and disciplinary perspectives. The only requirement is that the materials be in English.
Modules might be national or trans-national in scope, and could for example be built around a specific object or event in order to address a broader theme or movement. One obvious example would be a module on the policies, institutions, politics, and various representation of migration to Europe from Africa and the Middle East since 2014. We hope that modules will include a variety of materials in different formats (written texts, powerpoint presentations, photos, films or film clips, web sites) to make them appealing to a range of students.
Contributions could be materials that you already use in your teaching, but they should be adapted for students with little or no prior knowledge of the subject. If appropriate, we encourage collaboration among colleagues with shared interests.
Our goal is to complete four thematic modules by the end of the 2019-20 year (second grant year), and another four modules by the end of 2020-21 (third grant year). The grant provides four honoraria of $1250 per year to compensate faculty contributors. Please contact me if you are interested in contributing material.
With best wishes,
Brett Bowles
Associate Professor of French Studies
Director, Institute for European Studies
Click on the following link to see the SGIS press release:
Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies