1. Humanities Research Center
  2. Research
  3. Residential Fellowships
  4. Faculty Residential Fellowships

Faculty Residential Fellowships

The Humanities Research Center’s faculty residential fellowship program gives up to 4-6 faculty members release from teaching responsibilities for one semester so they can focus on individual research projects and at the same time engage regularly with each other. HRC fellows are expected to attend weekly Fellows Seminars and events at the HRC during their fellowship period. Publications resulting from this fellowship program must acknowledge the Center’s support. The fellows will also submit a report of their activities during the fellowship year by May 1st.

Eligibility

With support from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI) and the College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS), this fellowship will be awarded to up to 4 faculty members in the College of Humanities and Sciences, and up to 2 faculty members from other schools/departments at VCU who are engaged in humanistic projects. HRC Advisory Board members are eligible to apply but will not be involved in the evaluation process. Beginning this year, previous HRC residential fellows are eligible to apply.

Apply

Residency: 2025-26
Annual Theme, 2025-26: No theme
Deadline: November 1st, 2024

The HRC invites applications for faculty residential fellowships during the 2025-26 academic year. The HRC fosters interdisciplinary work, both within the humanistic disciplines, and between the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. The selected residential fellows will form an intellectual community of faculty of diverse academic ranks and departmental affiliations who will contribute to and learn from each other’s work as they pursue individual research projects. The goal of the HRC residential fellowship is to bring fresh perspectives from the humanities, arts, and social sciences to advance scholarly conversations across a range of disciplines. Applicants can submit research proposals on any topic related to the humanities or humanistic sciences. With this broad scope, the HRC aims to put scholars across various areas in conversation with each other in creative and intellectually generative ways. The resulting work will underscore the dynamic potential of humanistic scholarship to rethink methodological, theoretical, and disciplinary boundaries. Projects will be chosen based on compatibility and synergy with other submitted proposals, the quality of the proposals, and the needs of the applicants.

A complete application will consist of the following, submitted as a single PDF document:

  1. Cover page (applicant’s name, rank, department/school, contact information, title)
  2. 200-word abstract
  3. 1,000-word project proposal
  4. 1-page work plan for the year
  5. Short bibliography (up to 2 pages)
  6. Curriculum vitae (up to 4 pages)
  7. a short paragraph describing your contributions to the intellectual life of the HRC in the last three years (panels, grant teams, research groups, labs, webinars, Research Fridays, Meet VCU's Authors presentations, mentoring, community engagement work, etc.)
  8. Support from department chair (or equivalent); email is acceptable

Submit full applications (one PDF document) to cstanciu@vcu.edu by November 1st, 2024.

Review Process

Applications will be reviewed by a committee of faculty, including the previous year’s fellows, appointed by the center director. The applications will be evaluated on the following criteria:

  • Scholarly/creative excellence and promise of the project
  • Applicant’s readiness to pursue proposed research
  • Quality of the proposal
  • Demonstrated need for support
  • Explanation of how the experience of an HRC fellowship will benefit the applicant and the project