For Faculty

Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA College Division of Humanities, welcomes proposals for support from the Dean’s Discretionary Fund for the 2025-26 academic year.

Please note that applications may be submitted during the fall, winter and spring quarters.

Priority is given to proposals that contain one or both of the following criteria:

1. Research funding requests from faculty members who do not already have a general-purpose research fund available to them.
2. Funding requests for conferences or seminars to be held at UCLA, which will benefit many Humanities faculty members and students.

Approvals will be limited to support at most one proposal per individual applicant per academic year. Note that approved applications for Dean’s Discretionary Funding will preclude consideration for the Small Grants Program and Professional Development Fund within the same academic year, so applicants should weigh the various programs and select the one that best applies to their project.

Given that the available funds are limited, the majority of awards are given out in the range of $500 to $1,500, although in exceptional cases larger awards will be made if it is established that several faculty members will benefit. In the case of conference support, the proposal needs to demonstrate that the conference organizers will seek funding from other sources in addition to the Humanities Division.

To apply

To request support, please note the application deadlines below. Submissions must include:

1. A description of the project for which you are requesting support (conference, seminar, etc.), including a brief statement making a case for the intellectual merits of the project.
2. An itemization of the budget that also details funding requests to all other sources, including the Academic Senate, with information on whether funding has been received.
3. In the case of a workshop or conference, an estimate of the likely number of attendees, and/or a statement of how the event will benefit other faculty members and students at UCLA (with particular reference to Humanities scholars).

Applicants should submit funding requests for their project long enough in advance to allow for ample time for a funding decision prior to the project’s own deadline.

Application deadlines for 2025-26

The UCLA College of Letters & Science has an exchange agreement with the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, whereby one UCLA faculty member or graduate student is invited to participate in a research exchange with the Scuola Normale Superiore each academic year in order to encourage professional development in the areas of the Humanities, Social Sciences and Physical Sciences. This exchange allows for one visiting scholar to visit the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa for one to three months.

The next exchange is planned for spring/summer 2026, with exact dates to be set by the faculty or graduate student recipient in coordination with the Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS). The home institution provides roundtrip airfare and $2,000 per month for living expenses for up to three months.

Previous recipients of this exchange award proposed research at SNS on a wide range of topics, including the study of long-distance trade in the Mediterranean World, coding within the field of cosmology, and archival work on the first printed gazettes in the early Italian novella. In the case of faculty members, a full sabbatical must be taken if selected for this exchange, unless the visit to Pisa takes place during the summer months.

Application instructions

Applications should be submitted directly to Aaron Hodgdon at ahodgdon@college.ucla.edu and should include:

1. CV
2. Two-page (maximum) description of the proposed research that will be conducted during exchange.
3. Brief endorsement by the department chair in the case of faculty applications and by the dissertation director or other suitable faculty mentor in the case of graduate students.

Deadline

December 1, 2025

$30,000 unrestricted award for academic excellence

Gold Shield Alumnae of UCLA established the Faculty Prize in 1986 to honor outstanding teaching with recognition and a meaningful monetary award—one that could make a real difference in the lives of outstanding faculty in the middle of their academic careers.

Awarded annually, the Gold Shield Faculty Prize recognizes a UCLA faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional achievement in undergraduate teaching, research or creative work, and service to the university. Since its inception, 29 remarkable faculty members have received this honor.

In 2026, the Gold Shield Faculty Prize will recognize a faculty member representing a discipline from a school or department of the north campus of UCLA, including:

College of Letters & Sciences—Humanities Division
College of Letters & Sciences—Social Sciences Division
School of the Arts & Architecture
Herb Alpert School of Music
Luskin School of Public Affairs
School of Theater, Film & Television

Application deadline

February 23, 2026, at 5 p.m.

Nomination criteria and application instructions

Visit the program website for complete information.