Interseminars Co-Teaching Grant
Note: The application is closed for the 2026-27 co-teaching grant. The information below is for reference.
Over the past six years, with support from the Mellon Foundation, the Interseminars Initiative at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has provided funding and administrative infrastructure for collaborative graduate teaching, extended interdisciplinary inquiry, and public- and community-facing research in the humanities and arts. Interseminars aims to build communities of inquiry around emerging research directions and to promote the value of heterogeneity and access in graduate education in the humanities and arts. The Interseminars initiative encourages interdisciplinary courses with themes that center students from populations historically underrepresented in graduate education through pedagogical approaches that advance diverse ideas, perspectives, and experiences.
In this new fourth round of funding, Interseminars will fund three interdisciplinary graduate courses in the arts and humanities, each co-taught by two faculty instructors. Each team will receive programming funds for course-related guest speakers and events. We invite proposals for courses that will be taught in either fall 2026 or spring 2027.
Award Details
Faculty/Department Support: Each faculty member’s home department will receive a $21,000 administrative allowance that is intended to compensate the department for (1) the faculty member’s labor co-teaching the Interseminars course; and (2) a course release for the faculty member’s participation in course development and team-teaching coordination. The total will be $42,000 per team-teaching pair. In the case of faculty holding a dual percentage (joint) appointment, the distribution of funds will be determined upon award.
Project programming funds: Each faculty team will have a programming budget of up to $5K for course-related guest speakers and events to be coordinated by HRI during the semester of the course.
Application Deadline Date
Eligibility
Proposals must include teams of two tenure-stream faculty from the Urbana-Champaign campus representing at least two different departments/programs/units in the arts and humanities. Faculty members may participate in only one proposal each. Applicants are encouraged to consider diversity across methodologies, pedagogical approaches, and academic ranks in the construction of faculty teams.
Faculty members must be available in person during the semester of course instruction. Once a course is selected, the faculty co-instructors should be available to participate in an orientation and shared pedagogy meeting in spring 2026, to be scheduled by HRI.
Previous Interseminars co-conveners are not eligible for the co-teaching grant.
Terms
Reporting: Faculty will be required to submit a final project report by July 15, 2027. These reports are not only pragmatic documents regarding the project's progress, but also intellectual resources, functioning as an important archive for future interdisciplinary initiatives in graduate education.
Application Guidelines
Proposal Requirements
- Course proposal narrative of no more than 2000 words (Please use the proposal template – opens in Microsoft Word). The narrative should include:
- a. Narrative description of the proposed interdisciplinary course, providing the intellectual rationale; pedagogical approach; and potential cross-disciplinary impact.
- b. Explanation of how the course draws on faculty expertise and the proposed distribution of labor between faculty
- c. Plan for teaching, mentoring, and recruiting graduate students from different disciplinary backgrounds, including via pedagogical methods aimed at historically underrepresented graduate students
- d. Course title, course number(s), and an abstract of up to 500 words
- e. Provisional syllabus, including weekly outline of topics, readings/materials, activities, and assignments. N.B. We are not looking for a full-blown syllabus at this stage. What we expect to see is the title of the course; a rationale for the theme(s) of the course; a sketch of two or three themed subsections, organized perhaps by readings drawn from the work of the proposed external speakers; attention to the interdisciplinary approaches and methods the collaborators are envisioning; and a short bibliography of possible course readings/videos/digital platforms (no more than 10 items). Please contact us if you have questions about the syllabus preparation.
- Short c.v. (2 pages) for each faculty instructor.
- A list of 2-3 prospective course-related guest speakers (scholars, artists, activists) or events.
- Approval from the executive officer(s) of each faculty instructor’s department/academic unit(s) or the appropriate budgetary decision-maker from the faculty convener's unit.
(Please use the EO form; open in Adobe Acrobat for a fillable form.) The executive officer agrees to: release the faculty member from one course in fall 2026 or spring 2027; offer the proposed course for credit under the proposed rubric(s) during the 2026–27 academic year; and acknowledge that the department will receive funds that will help offset expenses incurred as a result of the faculty member’s participation in the Interseminars initiative.
Application Deadline Details
The application must be completed and submitted via the application form no later than 11:59 p.m. on October 3, 2025. Please note that HRI staff will only be available to assist with application questions until 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 3.
Selection Criteria
Applications are welcome from teams of two in all arenas of the humanities, arts and related fields. Proposals will undergo peer review by the Interseminars Steering Committee. Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria: significance of proposed course topic; clarity of course design and pedagogical approach; contribution to interdisciplinarity in the humanities and arts; commitment to diversity, including a plan for recruiting and mentoring underrepresented graduate students; and the potential impact on the future of interdisciplinary graduate education.
For questions about any of the criteria, please contact Antoinette Burton, Steering Committee Chair, at aburton@illinois.edu.
Notification
Notification of awards will be made by December 1, 2025.
Contact
For general questions, contact the Interseminars Project Coordinator, Danielle Sekel, at dsekel2@illinois.edu.