Creative Campus Funding Opportunities

Kevin Knudson, Chair, Creative Campus Committee

With funding provided by the Office of the Provost, the Creative Campus Committee (CCC) is pleased to announce the following opportunities for the 2014-15 academic year.

Catalyst Fund:  In an effort to promote and enhance creative activity on campus, the CCC solicits proposals for projects that offer highly innovative approaches to teaching, research, or multi-disciplinary enquiry.  Faculty are invited to propose projects individually or in collaboration with other faculty, staff, and students.  In all cases, the committee seeks to fund activities that have the potential to be transformative academically and have significant impacts on the social fabric of the campus.  Examples might include developing creative projects or programs such as interdisciplinary research or resource projects, large-scale collaborative art projects, curriculum projects (such as “writing across the curriculum”), or entrepreneurship events, as well as more explicitly “creativity-generating” activities, such as holding a creativity workshop or bringing a creativity expert to campus.  Applicants will be required to demonstrate the uniqueness of their approach and to indicate how it could yield discernible results for the UF population.  Proposals should also include plans for disseminating the project activities and possible future directions.  Preference will be given to projects that include significant involvement from undergraduates, although this is not a strict requirement.  Proposals may request a maximum of $25,000, and should describe projects that can be completed within the year of funding (fiscal year 2014-15).

Creative Scholar-in-Residence Program:  Successful applicants in this program will spend one or two semesters in a college away from their traditional academic home, specifically to carry out research, discussion, and teaching in an interdisciplinary environment.  Applicants must propose a research question or project to be addressed along with an action plan for working on this question collectively with faculty and students in another UF department.  Scholars are expected to participate fully in the intellectual life of the host department (e.g., participation in regular seminar series).  Applicants should indicate the projected outcomes for the individual Scholar, host department, and home department, and obtain letters of endorsement from both the home department and the proposed host college or department.  This fund will compensate the applicant’s home department at a rate of $5000 per course vacated by the Scholar, up to a maximum of $10,000 per person.

Application Procedure:  Those interested in applying to the Catalyst Fund are invited to submit a one-page letter of interest outlining the proposed project.  Please attach a second page containing a list of project partners and a rough budget.  Note that the committee will not fund the following:  food, excessive equipment requests, excessive travel requests.  No funding will be provided for existing projects; that is, the committee seeks to support new projects rather than serving as a source of funding for current activities.  These letters of interest will be evaluated by the committee and a subset of the applicants will be asked to submit full proposals later in the spring.

Faculty interested in the Creative Scholar-in-Residence Program are asked to submit a full proposal at this time.  The application template may be found at the Creative Campus Committee’s website.  Applications for both programs are due by Tuesday, January 15, 2014.

Applications should be submitted as e-mail attachments to Dr. Kevin Knudson at kknudson@honors.ufl.edu.  Questions may be directed to Dr. Knudson by e-mail or by calling (352) 392-1519.  Further information and application forms may be found at the committee’s website  http://fora.aa.ufl.edu/go/69