Welcome to the _LFP Update_, an e-publication from the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts to keep LFP representatives and others informed about the activities of 1) LFP National Network institutions, 2) present and former Lilly Fellows and, 3) the LFP office at Valparaiso University.
______ Opportunities for receiving Mentoring Grants or hosting ______
______ Network Exchanges and Regional Conferences ______
As a member of the LFP National Network of colleges and universities, you enjoy a number of privileges including support for attending the LFP National Conference and Workshop for Senior Administrators, support for attending the LFP National Research Conferences, and the chance to nominate up to three of your students for the Lilly Fellows Graduate Program. In addition, you have the opportunity to apply for five program grants to enable you to sponsor (1) programs for mentoring faculty on your campus, (2) network exchanges that showcase programs or projects that have been especially successful on your campuses, (3) small regional conferences that enable you to engage in close collaboration with schools in your area or with scholars who want to focus on a particular question or subject, (4) summer seminars for college teachers that bring together scholars from network schools for several weeks to address teaching concerns, and finally (5) large grants to sponsor an LFP national research conference.
At its fall meeting in October, 2007, the LFP national network board will award grants for these first three initiatives: mentoring programs, network exchanges, and regional conferences. These grants are smaller than the other two program grants, and we encourage any of you whose schools have been members of the LFP national network for at least one year to apply for one of these grants.
The grant to sponsor a faculty mentoring program is an especially great way to get started in the LFP granting process.
As we reported in the March, 2007 _LFP Update_, mentoring programs have been among the most popular and successful of all LFP initiatives. Mentoring programs provide funds to nurture new and junior faculty at Network institutions and strengthen the commitment of all faculty to institutional mission. Well-constructed mentoring programs encourage new faculty as well as veteran faculty to understand and share the ethos of the school, to grow to love the questions that the institution holds dear, and to consider the importance of fundamental matters concerning the relationship between higher learning and the Christian faith. The LFP awards $12,000 to grantees, many of whom received additional financial support from their school to institute new mentoring programs or to extend or enhance faculty development plans already in place.
Please visit the LFP website for more information on these programs. Please note that applications for mentoring programs, regional conferences, and network exchanges are due September 15, 2007.
Please also note that there will be a workshop on applying for LFP grants during registration at the LFP National Conference at Mercer University (October 19-21, 2007), from 2:30 to 3:00 pm.
______ Information regarding the 2007 LFP National Conference and the ______
______ Administrators Workshop ______
2007 LFP National Conference
The 2007 LFP National Conference, which will take place October 19-21, 2007, at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. This years conference is titled: Three Mirrors: Reflections on Faithful Living The Legacy of Robert Shaw, Flannery O'Connor, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and features presentations by Ann Howard Jones of Boston University, Andrew Manis of Macon State College, and Christina Bieber Lake of Wheaton College. There is no registration fee or cost for lodging or food for LFP Network representatives to attend. For more information, click here. Registration is due by September 28, 2007.
2007 LFP Workshop for Senior Administrators
Immediately preceding the National Conference will be the Eighth Annual Workshop for Senior Administrators on the topic, Mentoring Faculty for Mission. The Workshop will be held at Mercer University, October 18 and 19. Addressing the workshop will be Denise Doyle, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs at University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas, and Caroline Simon, Department of Philosophy at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and author of Mentoring for Mission: Nurturing New Faculty at Church-Related Colleges. Also at the workshop will be a panel discussion with Susan Sanders, St. Xavier University (http://www.sxu.edu/), Chicago, Deborah Mooney-Corcoran, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ruth Kath, Luther College, Decorah, IA, and Paul Smith, Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA.
The Workshop is offered at no cost to senior administrators at Lilly Fellows Program National Network member institutions. Participants will be reimbursed for travel costs up to $600. Meals and hotel accommodations will also be paid for by the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts. Registrations are due by October 1, 2007. For more information, click here.
___ Update on the new Lilly Graduate Fellows Program ___
As we reported in the May _LFP Update_ and in communication with you over the summer, the launch of the
Lilly Graduate Fellows Program
is well under way. Each of the 86 schools in the LFP National Network can nominate up to three students for this fellowship. Students must be planning to enter a Ph.D., M.F.A., or other terminal degree programs in humanities and the arts leading to a career in teaching, in fall, 2008. Nominees must have a bachelors degree awarded at the nominating institution from spring, 2006 up to August, 2008.
As we announced earlier this summer, currently you should be establishing a means of selecting these nominees. We have heard from a number of schools who are putting such plans together. Some are working through pre-existing channels for placing students in graduate fellowships, while other representatives have been meeting with key people (deans, heads of departments, and so on) to establish a plan for nominating students.
During the upcoming LFP National Conference at Mercer University there will be you will have the opportunity to attend a special session where we focus on plans to select nominees for the Lilly Graduate Fellows Program. We ask that you bring plans that you have developed at that point so we can share ideas and think through how best to select nominees.
___ Upcoming LFP National Research Conference ___
Please mark your calendars to reserve March 27-29 for the 2008 LFP National Research Conference, Convivencia: Religious Identities in the New World, to be held at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.
The title, Convivencia, or shared existence, is a concept from the "old world" of mediaeval Spain, when Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in mutual tolerance and relative peace. The conference will examine the concept of Convivencia from a variety of disciplines as it might speak to our "new world" which seems defined by tensions between religion and secularism and scarred by religious and ethnic violence. Los Angeles, where America imagines itself and where forces of globalization and fragmentation intersect, will provide a living backdrop for the conference.
The conference will open with a reception on the evening of Thursday, March 27, 2008, followed by a concert by the Yuval Ron Ensemble. The conference will begin with a keynote address on Friday, March 28, by María Rosa Menocal, and the conference will feature plenary speakers in dialogue with each other. These speakers include Ahmet Karamustafa, Ebrahim Moosa, Peter Phan, Robert Orsi, Linda Komaroff, Arnold Eisen, Thomas Tweed, Diane Winston, Timothy Matovina, and Ann Taves.
For more information, click here.
__ Look for your network Communiqué and Lilly Fellows Program Brochure __
You should have already received your copy of the 2008 Lilly Fellows Program Brochure. This is a great resource that contains the basic aims and programmatic objectives of the Lilly Fellows Program as well as in invitation for applications for the LFP Postdoctoral Fellows Program at Valparaiso University. Please distribute these on your campus or at professional conferences or anywhere you might want to publicize the LFP.
Be looking also for the 2007 network Communiqué, the annual newsletter for the LFP. This publication contains news of events over the 2006-2007 academic year and announces upcoming events and initiatives.
Please contact us if you would like more copies of either the LFP Brochure or the network Communiqué for distribution.
______ Other dates and deadlines for your calendar ______
The next series of programs that will receive funding are: Mentoring Programs, Network Exchange Programs, and Regional Conferences. Proposals are due September 15, 2007.
The deadline for submitting up to three nominees for the Lilly Graduate Fellows Program is December 10, 2007.
The deadline for applications for the 2007-2009 Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowships in Humanities and the Arts has been set for Tuesday, December 18, 2007.
For more information, visit the LFP website.
______ From the Colloquium ______
In alternate years, the Lilly Fellows Colloquium considers the relationship between Christianity and the academic vocation. This semester, the guiding question will be What does God call us to be and to do as Christian scholars and teachers? Mark Schwehn has selected texts from William Placer's collection, Callings, and from Leading Lives That Matter, which Mark edited with his wife Dorothy Bass, Project Director of the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith. Additional readings will include, Schwehn's Exiles from Eden, The Divine Summons, by Gilbert Meilaender, C.S. Lewis' Learning in War Time, Alan Bennet's play The History Boys, and, in preparation for our trip to the Lilly Fellows National Conference at Mercer University in Macon, GA, and to near-by Milledgeville, two stories by Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Parker's Back." We welcome our three new post-docs to the Colloquium, Matthew Lundin, Justin Poché, and Bryan Stewart and all of our send our best wishes to you as you launch embark upon academic year 2007-08.
--John Steven Paul
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