New Foundation for Art History: Fellowships for Contingent Faculty Grant

The New Foundation for Art History (NFAH) offers Fellowships for Contingent Faculty to address the growing reliance on contingent positions in art history. Launched in 2019, these fellowships provide $10,000 to $15,000 for each summer, up to $45,000 over three years. By accommodating the unique schedules of contingent faculty, NFAH aims to support research and publication efforts, facilitating career advancement and promoting equity within the discipline.

Like other granting institutions, the goal of the NFAH will be to foster the best current research in the discipline. But it will do so with a difference. Having no long-term commitments or established culture, the NFAH can be entrepreneurial in the way it approaches its grant-making activities. The NFAH wants to lead by example towards a more equitable future of the discipline, and one where excellence is promoted and rewarded in the broadest ways possible.
Colleagues have observed with increasing alarm the growth of contingent faculty positions at the expense of tenure track lines throughout the field of art history. Given this new reality, the NFAH would like to be the first to address it by way of two new fellowships designed around the specific needs of contingent faculty. Realizing that many contingent faculty cannot take regular full-year fellowships without losing the tenuous support of their positions, these new NFAH fellowships aim to supply two or three subsequent summers of research leave. By working to the extent possible within the hard strictures of contingent/adjunct teaching loads and schedules, NFAH hopes to provide sufficient support to help successful applicants advance by way of research and publication to more secure positions within the discipline, partially ameliorating the current crisis in art historical work. Ultimately, it is hoped that other institutions will join the NFAH in developing alternative funding for contingent faculty advancement.
Award
The NFAH will grant each recipient between $10,000 and $15,000 for each summer (up to a total of $45,000 per applicant over three years).

Eligibility

The NFAH only accepts applications from scholars at U.S. institutions.