Each year, UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) offers fellowships to UWM faculty and academic staff to provide the time, space and collegial support to generate new knowledge and ideas. C21 has identified “Public Good” as the theme that informs offerings for the next three years (2027-2030).
For 2027-28, applications are now open, and the deadline is Friday, Dec. 4.
The overall “Public Good” theme will explore efforts to define and defend, as well as to challenge and restrict shared resources, common infrastructures, and collective responsibilities, questioning the meanings of “public” and “good” as founded on exclusion as much as inclusion and shaped by shifting concepts of citizenship, community, and obligation.
C21’s 2027-2028 programming focuses on Public Good: Education. What does it mean to define education as a public good? Who counts as public, and what counts as good? C21 takes up these questions while considering the contested histories of access alongside changing ideas of who and what education serves. We will also consider how the humanities in particular position education beyond workforce preparedness to include the cultivation of civic responsibility and the capacity to interpret, deliberate and speculate with others about the world around us.
We welcome multiple interpretations of this open topic, including broader explorations of “public” and “good” as they relate to pressing issues of our time and/or work inside and outside the university. Applicants can choose to apply with projects that align with education as a subtheme or that relate to the overarching theme of public good.
Applicants should propose a research project related to this thematic area. Projects can be individual or collaborative. Examples of projects include:
- Researching/preparing material for public presentation in a wide variety of forms including monographs, essays, podcasts, performances; art installation/exhibits, community programs; digital interfaces; archives or artifacts.
- Researching for/development of large-scale collaborative projects, such as grant proposals, building networks, etc.
- Researching/preparing syllabi for innovative, interdisciplinary team-teaching initiatives or credit-bearing programs such as certificates, minors and degrees.
