Funded scholarship
There is an increasing emphasis in academe on funded scholarship. Surely, we have been witnessing this within our own disciplines as well as within the structures of our universities. Upper administrations across campuses are interested in fostering funded scholarship as universities face budget cuts and are driven toward fund generating models. How then do we position liberal arts scholarship in this overall university climate that is increasingly dependent on funded research? First, there is indeed an overall need to explore meaningful funding opportunities for scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Second, and this I believe is a vital point, there is an increasing need for educating funders about what a humanities and social science approach contributes to our knowledge of the world and the value added by these contributions. Some of the most fundamental grand challenges that are facing the world today are challenges that need humanistic and social scientific solutions