An excellent leadership and civic engagement opportunity.
Through Spring 2026, Project Pericles will support more than 50 Mellon Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs). Using civically engaged and inclusive pedagogy and voter education as a guiding light, this initiative aims to transform faculty careers, student lives, institutions, and communities, by empowering them with the skills and resources necessary to help build a more inclusive and equitable society.
Mellon Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) are a cadre of scholars designing and teaching humanities courses that incorporate community-initiated projects and voter education. Through their innovative curricula working with community organizations and through facilitating discussions about the importance of voting, PFLs create experiences that equip students with skills necessary to transform our political and social landscape.
Mellon Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) are a cadre of scholars designing and teaching humanities courses that incorporate community-initiated projects and voter education. Through their innovative curricula working with community organizations and through facilitating discussions about the importance of voting, PFLs create experiences that equip students with skills necessary to transform our political and social landscape.
Program HighlightsFinancial Support
A $4,500 Award will be granted to the campus for each Periclean Faculty Leader Course. Empower Students and the Local Community Faculty will develop, teach, and evaluate a new (or significantly revised) humanities course that incorporates civic engagement and includes a community-initiated project. This is a powerful opportunity for place-based learning and serves as an example of the importance of the relationship between college and community. Encourage Voter Participation The course will also integrate voter education. Faculty will facilitate one deliberative dialogue discussion about a relevant civic issue. These discussions show the connection between students’ ideologies, real-world policies, their elected officials, and the importance of voting. Professional Development Opportunities Fellows will connect with civically engaged scholars across the nation through virtual convenings and peer collaboration. |
ApplicationEach faculty member interested in applying to this program must submit the following items in their application to their campus. Each campus will select one application each round to be forwarded to Project Pericles.
Deadline For a a Mellon Periclean Faculty Leadership Course taught in Spring 2025, Application Packages must be submitted to Project Pericles by Friday, April 5, 2024. Awards will be announced in June 2024. |
Applicant details
Overview
Project Pericles requests faculty nominations from Periclean colleges and universities for the Mellon Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program in the Humanities supported by the Mellon Foundation and The Eugene M. Lang Foundation.
Mellon Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) will develop, teach, and evaluate a humanities course that includes a community-initiated project and integrates voter education through deliberative dialogue discussions about a relevant civic issue. Faculty will also engage in professional development, advance public scholarship through presentations/publications, and contribute their work to our online curricular resources and databases. Courses will address grand challenges: Climate Change, Economic Justice, Education Access, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Public Health, Race and Inequality, and Voter Engagement.
Project Pericles will support 58 Periclean Faculty Leaders across our 29 campuses with a $4,500 award to the college to support this work. PFLs will teach in Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, and/or Spring 2026. PFL portfolios must be submitted by June 1, 2026. See section “VI. To Apply” below for more information.
At the campus level, PFLs serve as advocates and thought leaders for campus civic engagement activities. At the national level, PFLs advance public scholarship across higher education more broadly by presenting their work to their peers. We are excited to invite faculty to apply for this initiative that aims to transform faculty careers, student lives, institutions, and communities, by empowering them with the skills and resources necessary to help build an inclusive and equitable society.
Mellon Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) will develop, teach, and evaluate a humanities course that includes a community-initiated project and integrates voter education through deliberative dialogue discussions about a relevant civic issue. Faculty will also engage in professional development, advance public scholarship through presentations/publications, and contribute their work to our online curricular resources and databases. Courses will address grand challenges: Climate Change, Economic Justice, Education Access, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Public Health, Race and Inequality, and Voter Engagement.
Project Pericles will support 58 Periclean Faculty Leaders across our 29 campuses with a $4,500 award to the college to support this work. PFLs will teach in Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, and/or Spring 2026. PFL portfolios must be submitted by June 1, 2026. See section “VI. To Apply” below for more information.
At the campus level, PFLs serve as advocates and thought leaders for campus civic engagement activities. At the national level, PFLs advance public scholarship across higher education more broadly by presenting their work to their peers. We are excited to invite faculty to apply for this initiative that aims to transform faculty careers, student lives, institutions, and communities, by empowering them with the skills and resources necessary to help build an inclusive and equitable society.
Eligibility
Tenure, tenure-track, and full-time faculty who are expected to teach beyond 2026 at a Periclean college or university are eligible. For each round of applications, each institution is invited to nominate one eligible faculty member to be a PFL. One of the goals of the PFLs is that they remain on campus after their tenure as a PFL so that in the long term they can share their expertise with others on campus. Faculty members who serve as the Project Pericles Program Director are eligible to apply. Previous Periclean Faculty Leaders are not eligible to apply.
Grant Award
Project Pericles will provide an award of $4,500 for each PFL course ($500 of which can be an administrative honorarium to be used at the Project Pericles Program Director’s discretion.) Member institutions will have latitude for determining how these funds are used to advance the goals of the course, address community needs, and support humanities related work. The funds can be used for faculty development and to support departmental priorities related to community-based projects and the work of the PFLs. Funds may be used for community partners, PFL course expenses and supplies, faculty support, as well as administrative and travel expenses. Half of the grant will be awarded after the PFLs are announced and half will be awarded after all required activities are completed, including submitting all evaluation materials. All materials must be submitted to Project Pericles 60 days after the end of the course, or by June 1, 2026.
Selection Process and Criteria
Periclean Faculty Leaders will be selected by a panel of academic experts serving as external evaluators including: college presidents, foundation leaders, and Project Pericles staff. Selection criteria will include academic rigor, quality of the community-based project or research, evidence of community input, previous success developing curricula that incorporates community-initiated learning, quality of voter engagement elements, previous success developing publicly engaged academic work, assessment and evaluation plan, connection to civic responsibility, creativity, feasibility, significance, articulation and measurability of concrete goals, and sustainability and transferability to future courses and other colleges. PFL selection will be highly competitive.
Program Requirements
Develop, Teach, and Evaluate a New Humanities Course in Collaboration with a Community Partner
- The PFL will develop, teach, and evaluate a course integrating civic engagement in collaboration with a community partner. In the course, students will work on a project that addresses a problem faced by the community. The expectation is that at the end of the course, the community partner has had significant help from the students, faculty, and college. In most cases the community partner is excited to continue working with the college for another course because the student work is important.
- The community organization with whom the faculty member is proposing to collaborate must sign off on the course and/or provide a letter of support. This ensures that the course project helps solve an issue or address a need that is identified by the community.
- The course will also incorporate civil dialogue, civic engagement, and social responsibility as critical elements of the educational experience.
- The course will run for one or more semesters: Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, and/or Spring 2026
- Proposals must be for the development of a new course in the humanities, or the substantial revision of a current course. If the course is revised, it must be clear how the course is significantly revised.
- The course must incorporate one or more community-initiated projects that address one or more of the following grand challenges: Climate Change, Economic Justice, Education Access, Immigration, Mass Incarceration, Public Health, Race and Inequality, and Voter Engagement.
- The PFL may develop, teach, and evaluate the PFL course with another faculty member from their college or university. The institution can determine how it will handle sharing the $4,500 award with the other faculty member.
- All course syllabi, related materials, and evaluations must be submitted to Project Pericles within 60 days of the end of the course, and in no case later than June 1, 2026. It is expected that Mellon PFL course will be taught in future years.
Voter Engagement and Education
Voter participation is a key component to our democracy, and yet, many barriers exist to full participation—especially for youth and historically underrepresented populations. Students recognize these inequalities and are eager for change. In the course, PFLs will integrate voter education using the Periclean Voting Modules as a resource. Mellon Periclean Faculty Leaders (PFLs) will facilitate a deliberative dialogue discussion connecting civic policies affecting course themes. Then, they highlight the impact that voting and elected officials have on these policies. By raising students’ consciousness of society’s grand challenges, PFLs are uniquely positioned to incorporate deliberative dialogue and voter education into the curriculum.
- Incorporate one Deliberative Dialogue Discussion in a class period— Faculty will facilitate one deliberative dialogue discussion about a relevant civic issue (using the Periclean Voting Modules as a resource.) These discussions show the connection between students’ ideologies, real-world policies, their elected officials, and the importance of voting.
- Building on the deliberative dialogues, faculty will use the “how to vote” and “why voting matters” modules to educate and encourage students about the importance of voting for all citizens in local and national elections.
Advancing Public Scholarship across Higher Education More Broadly
One goal is that PFLs will lead and inspire others beyond the scope of the Mellon PFL Course. Therefore, PFLs are expected to accomplish this through organizing a campus-wide activity and/or preparing an academic paper or research project.
Each PFL will be required to complete one or both of the following two activities:
Each PFL will be required to complete one or both of the following two activities:
- Campus/Community Activity: The PFL will develop an activity that brings diverse campus and community members together that is separate from the Mellon PFL course. The event will address current public/community issues and enliven democratic engagement and civil discourse. This could be a symposium, a public performance, or a political advocacy project.
- Research Project: To advance public scholarship nationally and internationally, faculty members will be asked to develop a scholarly paper/project related to the Mellon PFL Course they develop and their academic interests. The faculty member will be expected to publish an article in a journal and/or present their paper/project at a national conference. A copy of the faculty member’s abstract/article/conference application should be sent to Project Pericles.
Participate in Professional Development
- Participate in Virtual Convenings as part of a Faculty Leadership and Learning Community. Project Pericles will organize virtual convenings, led by Project Pericles staff and PFLs, for faculty each semester to share resources, work through challenges, and create community among civically engaged scholars. PFLs will be encouraged to attend a PFL meeting that will be held in conjunction with the January AAC&U National Annual Conference in 2024 and 2025. We will use this meeting as an opportunity for faculty development, feedback, peer mentoring, and collaborations.
- Participate in Peer Collaboration: Each PFL will be paired with a PFL from a different institution at the beginning of their tenure and will consult with each other throughout the program. The purpose of peer collaboration is to facilitate conversation and structured feedback by faculty throughout their experience as PFLs. This PFL Program specifically focusing on the humanities will encourage greater collaboration between PFLs on different campuses. Previous cohorts of PFLs will serve as additional resources.
Program Evaluation
There will be two components to the evaluation: Portfolio and Peer Review.
Portfolio: At the conclusion of the program, Mellon PFLs prepare a brief portfolio of their work as a PFL and share this with their peer, program director, and Project Pericles. The purpose of the portfolio is to convey (to the PFL, their institution, their peer, Project Pericles, the Mellon Foundation, and The Eugene M. Lang Foundation) the impact of the PFL award on the course, the students, the community partner, and professional development. Most important are narratives and pictures (if possible) that convey this impact which Periclean supporters find so inspirational.
Portfolio materials include:
About Evaluation Materials: Project Pericles welcomes both quantitative results and qualitative narratives as part of the evaluations. Evaluations should convey how effective the course was in teaching academic objectives. Among the factors to be considered are: the impact of the Mellon PFL course on the community organization; the impact of the PFL experience on other courses the faculty member will teach and on their colleagues’ courses; the impact of the course on student attitudes, enthusiasm, and civic engagement; the techniques that emerged for incorporating civil dialogue and civic engagement into academic curricula; the effectiveness of collaboration; the effectiveness of designing and assessing ways to incorporate civil dialogue and civic engagement into academic courses and in exploring ways to translate findings into useful practices for other colleges and universities.
Submit a One-Page Review of your Peer’s Portfolio: After sharing your portfolios, Mellon PFL peers will assess each other’s portfolios and the impact of your peer’s work for their students, community, institution, and higher education more widely. PFLs prepare a one-page review of their peer’s work and submit a copy of this review to Project Pericles and to their peer by June 1, 2026.
Portfolio: At the conclusion of the program, Mellon PFLs prepare a brief portfolio of their work as a PFL and share this with their peer, program director, and Project Pericles. The purpose of the portfolio is to convey (to the PFL, their institution, their peer, Project Pericles, the Mellon Foundation, and The Eugene M. Lang Foundation) the impact of the PFL award on the course, the students, the community partner, and professional development. Most important are narratives and pictures (if possible) that convey this impact which Periclean supporters find so inspirational.
Portfolio materials include:
- The syllabus of the PFL course and other relevant instructional materials
- Evaluation Materials:
- A Personal Self-Reflection/Self-Evaluation on the impact of this course on yourself, the students, the campus, and the community.
- Materials from Students’ Work on Community-Initiated Projects
- Community Partner Evaluations/Narratives
- Student Course Evaluations (please include number of students enrolled) and Self-Evaluations and/or Narratives
- Faculty leadership and development materials from section 3 of the RFP: The Campus/Community Activity or Research Project/Publication
About Evaluation Materials: Project Pericles welcomes both quantitative results and qualitative narratives as part of the evaluations. Evaluations should convey how effective the course was in teaching academic objectives. Among the factors to be considered are: the impact of the Mellon PFL course on the community organization; the impact of the PFL experience on other courses the faculty member will teach and on their colleagues’ courses; the impact of the course on student attitudes, enthusiasm, and civic engagement; the techniques that emerged for incorporating civil dialogue and civic engagement into academic curricula; the effectiveness of collaboration; the effectiveness of designing and assessing ways to incorporate civil dialogue and civic engagement into academic courses and in exploring ways to translate findings into useful practices for other colleges and universities.
Submit a One-Page Review of your Peer’s Portfolio: After sharing your portfolios, Mellon PFL peers will assess each other’s portfolios and the impact of your peer’s work for their students, community, institution, and higher education more widely. PFLs prepare a one-page review of their peer’s work and submit a copy of this review to Project Pericles and to their peer by June 1, 2026.
This program is part of a three-year initiative, “Curricula for Social Change: Empowering College Faculty, Students, and Communities through Voter Engagement.” This is funded by a $900,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation with additional support by The Eugene M. Lang Foundation (see the press release for more information). The initiative supports faculty to integrate voter education and social justice issues into humanities curricula through deliberative dialogue and community-initiated projects. By incorporating academic content with civic issues students are passionate about, this initiative will transform the lives of hundreds of faculty, thousands of students, and more than 50 communities by empowering them with the skills and resources necessary to build a more inclusive and equitable society.
For a discussion of the PFL Program and examples of successful civic engagement courses, see our White Paper, "The Periclean Diamond: Linking College, Campuses, Communities, and Colleagues via Social and Civic High Engagement Learning," which discusses the first cohort of Periclean Faculty Leaders.
For a discussion of the PFL Program and examples of successful civic engagement courses, see our White Paper, "The Periclean Diamond: Linking College, Campuses, Communities, and Colleagues via Social and Civic High Engagement Learning," which discusses the first cohort of Periclean Faculty Leaders.
Questions?
Reach out to Arielle del Rosario at [email protected] for any support.
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