Findings Staff| Nov. 8, 2019
DAAP professor Conrad Kickert got exciting news this summer. Routledge, one of the world's leading academic publishers, will review his next book, an examination of eye-level architecture and how we, humans, have transformed it over time.
Kickert says he has the University Research Council to thank for funds, which allowed him to do the research for this and his first book, “Dream City: Creation, Destruction, and Reinvention in Downtown Detroit,” which just won the Mellon Author Award through the Society of Architectural Historians.
While over in the English department, drama and performance studies professor Sharrell D. Luckett is also grateful for the URC funds she used this summer to bring two CCM undergraduate students along to her sold-out Black Acting Methods Studio Symposium, held in Atlanta, Georgia. Luckett is the lead editor of the award-winning book “Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches.”
“Before my book, the larger public did not acknowledge or robustly discuss that there were other acting methodologies outside of white European methodology,” Luckett says.
Like them, Carlie Trott, a professor of psychology, can’t wait to put her URC award to use. It will pay for her return to Haiti—the poorest country in the western hemisphere. More specifically, the southern coastal community of Jacmel, where Trott has been working with children and young adults to integrate arts and sciences into environmental action projects related to water quality and pollution.
These are just three of the hundreds of projects the University Research Council has funded since the awards program began in 2008. The Office of Research is now accepting RFPs for the 2019-2020 funding cycle, with a deadline of Dec. 12.
“These awards don’t simply benefit our dedicated and inspired faculty but also undergraduate and graduate students,” says Vice President for Research Patrick Limbach. “I’d like to challenge every researcher on campus to think about how an URC award might elevate the important work being done locally and around the world.”
The Office of Research internal funding programs seek to support diverse and inclusive research projects and teams.
There are four award categories to choose from:
- Graduate Student Stipend and Research Cost Program for Faculty: This program provides summer stipend support to outstanding graduate students plus funds to support related research costs working in collaboration with a UC faculty member. A total award of $5,000 is available to each applicant. Stipend support of up to $4,000 will be provided to the graduate student plus up to $1,000 for research costs payable to the department.
- Undergraduate Student Stipend and Research Cost Program for Faculty: This program provides summer stipend support to outstanding undergraduate students plus funds to support related research costs working in collaboration with a UC faculty member. Stipend support of up to $4,000 will be provided to the student plus up to $500 for research costs payable to the department.
Kickert won two grants, one in 2016 and one in 2019. He now helps with the review process. “The guidelines are straight forward, the review is fair and it’s relatively quick—it doesn’t take a year to get an answer,” Kickert says. “I have full confidence that this URC grant will make me more competitive for other grants in the future.”
Luckett will also build on the work she did with URC funds—next year she’ll bring the Black Acting Methods Studio Symposium to UC and plans to create a permanent incubator for her award-winning performance theory, here in Cincinnati. “I had no idea how needed and important this work was—I almost can’t keep up with the demand for workshops, lectures, and the opening of the online institute, which I am also building,” Luckett says.
Meanwhile, Trott is finetuning her plans to return to Haiti.
“The broader intention is keeping youth involved in protecting their future,” Trott says. “That sense of agency, that they can be stewards of the environment, is the change we need to protect local ecosystems and our world, as a whole.”