Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:

FY25 Mellon Foundation: Sawyer Seminar

Following this 2024-2025 cycle, the competition will be paused in 2025-2026 for an evaluation of the pilot’s outcomes that will inform a full re-launch planned for 2026-2027.

 

We are delighted to announce a pilot for Mellon’s re-envisioning of the Seminars, in celebration of their 30th anniversary this October. Since 1994, the Sawyer Seminar program has provided support for comparative research on historical and contemporary topics of scholarly significance. In recent years, Mellon’s grantmaking has reflected a new strategic priority of imagining and creating socially just, equitable futures. In an effort to align Sawyers more closely with this goal, we are reorienting the program for the 2024 competition and beyond to focus on the study of major social and political challenges that directly impact the structures and practices characterizing the American university.

Through this shift, we seek to celebrate the program’s original mission of elevating critical scholarship while also reframing the Seminars for our present moment, when universities—and, especially, humanities study—are facing a myriad of unprecedented challenges. We envision Sawyer Seminars, which for nearly three decades have been a vehicle for transformative thought, as a useful means through which humanities-grounded, multidisciplinary teams of faculty and other academic leaders can collaboratively address critical issues affecting their campuses. Accordingly, the subject we are asking applicants to consider this year is academic freedom and democracy in the American university.

The overall format of the envisioned seminars remains largely unchanged. The main variation is that, while earlier Sawyer competitions were largely centered on comparative historical study, this year's submissions should focus specifically on the future of the American university. We are especially eager to see innovative humanistic approaches and methods of inquiry brought to bear on the topic of academic freedom and democracy in the American university. More detailed guidelines, a program overview, and an official invitation to submit will be shared over the summer.

In the meantime, on behalf of the Higher Learning team, I thank you for your continued interest in Sawyer Seminars as we enter their next phase. We hope this brief update allows you to initiate plans for your internal search for proposals, and we look forward to being in touch again soon with further details.

Research Category
Internal Deadline
External Deadline
08/01/2024
Solicitation Type

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: 2023 Exploring Democracy, Environmental Justice, and Social Justice

Limit: 3 // 
A. Gerlak (Center for Studies in Public Policy)
L.  Medovoi (English)
A. Park (Poetry)

 

In the interest of maintaining a grantmaking portfolio that supports inquiry into issues of vital social, cultural, and historical import, the Higher Learning program at the Mellon Foundation invites ideas for research and/or curricular projects focused on any of the following three areas:
• Cultures of US Democracy
• Environmental Justice Studies
• Social Justice and Disciplinary Knowledge

The Mellon Higher Learning team will review all submissions and invite a few of the most promising ones to be developed into full proposals for potential grant funding. In consideration of the anticipated volume of concept submissions, we are unable to provide feedback on preliminary concepts.

 

Principal Investigator:
The Principal Investigator (PI) should be a faculty member or dean in a program or department in the humanities or humanistic social sciences, or the institution’s provost, and should have the support of the institution’s senior academic leadership. 

Research Category
Funding Type
Internal Deadline
External Deadline
11/30/2023 ( Requiered registration)
Solicitation Type