Organizations across the University of Chicago offer a variety of resources designed to support creative endeavors, arts practice and research, exhibition and performance, and professional development across the campus. A variety of grants, fellowships, funds, and prizes are available.
The funding sources below are organized according to the eligibility of particular applicant groups: University-supported organizations, units, and individuals; individual students or Recognized Student Organizations (RSOs); faculty, full-time lecturers, and instructors; and alumni. Since these groups overlap, some funding sources are cross-listed.
In addition to exploring the funding opportunities listed below, we encourage you to contact University departments and centers whose work relates to your individual project.
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University-supported organizations, units, and individuals
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Individual students or Recognized Student Organizations (RSOs)
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Faculty, full-time lecturers, and instructors
University-Supported Organizations, Units, and Individuals
UChicago Arts Grants
Funded by: UChicago Arts Fund
Award range: up to $5,000
Currently on a temporary hiatus as of Spririg Quarter 2020.
The UChicago Arts Grants program solicits original ideas from faculty and staff for the creation and presentation of projects in the arts. The program is particularly interested in funding projects that encourage collaboration between the arts and other disciplines.
Inclusive Climate Grants
Funded by: Diversity and Inclusion Initiative
Award range: staged programs offer up to $100, $1000, $5,000, or $10,000
Currently suspended for the 2020-2021 Academic Year.
Proposals are accepted for projects and programs that further the inclusiveness of the campus environment and fuller participation of the University's members in the academic, professional, and extracurricular life of the campus.
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Individual Students or Recognized Student Organizations (RSOs)
Careers In Arts, Culture & Entertainment - Academic Year Grant
Funded by: Careers in Arts, Culture & Entertainment
Award range: - Up to $1500
These grants are for Unpaid Academic-Year Internships and Research Opportunities. To apply for a JAMgrant, you must have already acquired an internship. Students will submit a proposal that explains how this opportunity will enhance career goals. Apply on Handshake - https://uchicago.joinhandshake.com/jobs/3853874/share_preview
Careers In Journalism and Creative Writing - Academic Year Grant
Funded by: Careers in Journalism and Creative Writing
Award range: - Up to $1500
These grants are for Unpaid Academic-Year Internships and Research Opportunities. To apply for a JAMgrant, you must have already acquired an internship. Students will submit a proposal that explains how this opportunity will enhance career goals. Apply on Handshake - https://uchicago.joinhandshake.com/jobs/3853853/share_preview
Careers In Journalism and Creative Writing - Summer Grant
Funded by: Careers in Journalism and Creative Writing
Award range: - Up to $4000
This funding support students in unpaid journalism, arts, or media internships in the student’s field during the summer. To apply for a JAMgrant you must have already acquired an internship. REMOTE INTERNSHIPS QUALIFY. Apply on Handshake - https://uchicago.joinhandshake.com/jobs/3853888/share_preview
Careers In Arts, Culture & Entertainment - Summer Grant
Funded by: Careers in Arts, Culture & Entertainment
Award range: - Up to $4000
This funding support students in unpaid journalism, arts, or media internships in the student’s field during the summer. To apply for a JAMgrant you must have already acquired an internship. REMOTE INTERNSHIPS QUALIFY.
https://uchicago.joinhandshake.com/jobs/3853880/share_preview
Student Logan Art Fund
Funded by: Logan Center
Award range: -
Requests reviewed on a rolling basis
As part of the overall goal to encourage active student arts engagement, the Logan Center provides resources such as space, staffing support and limited funding to undergraduate and graduate students and student groups doing work in the Logan Center. These projects and events need to contribute to the overall mission of the Logan Center. Requests are reviewed on a rolling basis by a committee of Logan Center staff, graduate and undergraduate art students, and select department representatives. Please email logancenter@uchicago.edu for more information.
Rockefeller Chapel Choral Singers
Funded by: Rockefeller Chapel
Auditions held annually in Fall Quarter
Auditions will be held in the fall for Rockefeller Chapel Choral Scholars, student choristers who serve as vocal leaders within the historic Chapel Choir for ceremonies of many kinds, virtual or otherwise. There are 3 to 6 opportunities annually, with quarterly stipends awarded. The program is directed by James Kallembach, Director of Chapel Music (kallemba@uchicago.edu).
Rockefeller Chapel Organ Scholars
Funded by: Rockefeller Chapel
Auditions held annually in Fall Quarter
Auditions will be held in the fall for Rockefeller Chapel Organ Scholars, select student keyboardists who receive weekly lessons and (when permissible) quarterly recital opportunities on the treasured Skinner and Reneker (Wilhelm) pipe organs at the University Chapels. There are usually 2 organ scholars each year, with quarterly stipends or occasional paid service opportunities possible. The program is directed by Thomas Weisflog, University Organist (weisflog@uchicago.edu).
Rockefeller Chapel Carillon Studio
Funded by: Rockefeller Chapel
Auditions held annually in Fall Quarter
Auditions will be held in the fall for the Rockefeller Chapel Carillon Studio, students learning to play and lead virtual or onsite tours on the great bells of the Laura Spelman Memorial Carillon, one of the largest musical instruments in the world. There are up to 20 student carillonneurs receiving regular free instruction throughout the year, and recently 2 summer carillon awardees from this group receiving a stipend for the following summer to continue recitals. The program is directed by Joey Brink, University Carillonneur (jbrink@uchicago.edu).
Music Department Lesson Awards
Funded by: Music Department
Award range: -
Auditions held annually in Fall Quarter
Music Department Lesson Awards are grants presented by the Department of Music to a limited number of registered UChicago students to help defray the cost of private lessons in applied music. These grants are awarded on the basis of competitive auditions, and may be used to cover up to, but not more than, 60% of the total cost of private lessons for the 2017-2018 academic year. Explicit preference is given to musicians who are active in one or more of the Department’s 15 performance organizations.
Festival of the Arts
Funded by: Festival of the Arts (FOTA)
Award range: $20 - $220
Applications reviewed quarterly (Fall, Winter, Spring)
FOTA promotes art and creativity at UChicago by bringing together the diversity of campus—artists and audiences—through on-campus events that advocate arts creation and appreciation. Since 1963, SpringFest has achieved this purpose by transforming the campus into an art gallery/performance space and showcasing projects of various disciplines (visual, theater, music, etc.). FOTA helps student artists realize their creative ideas by providing funding, exhibition facilities, and curatorial liaisons for approximately 40 artists. For more information, contact FOTA via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/UChiFOTA.
Dean's Fund for Student Life
Funded by: College Dean
Award range: $750-$1500
Applications reviewed monthly, September through June
The Dean's Fund for Student Life offers students in the College opportunities to advance their chosen academic and professional goals, as these undertakings serve as an important source of innovation and learning for our campus culture. Funded by donations from generations of alumni, the Fund exists to support and implement student ideas and development by sponsoring one-time projects as well as by providing support for the Uncommon Fund. Students may apply for the Dean's Fund at any time they are enrolled as a student and plan to be enrolled the following quarter. Students may receive funding only once during their College career. Funding requests made to the Dean's Fund are one-time requests and cannot be renewed. Applications are reviewed monthly.
Annual Allocations
Funded by: Student Government
Applications reviewed annually, April
The Student Government Finance Committee Annual Allocations is an opportunity for RSOs to apply for funds for their events in the upcoming year. Priority is given to funding annual events or programs that are an integral part of an RSO's programming, while remaining funds are used to support new, thoroughly planned programs. Capital Improvements are not eligible for SGFC Annual Allocations. For more information, visit https://leadership.uchicago.edu/registered-student-organizations/annual-allocations/.
Student Government Finance Committee
Funded by: Student Government
Applications reviewed weekly, during academic quarters
Along with Annual Allocations and Summer SGFC, the Student Government Finance Committee disburses the largest segment of the Student Activities Fee for RSO use. The committee meets weekly to review RSO funding requests; RSOs can request funds from this committee for an event or even a capital improvement. For more information, visit https://leadership.uchicago.edu/sgfc/.
Program Coordinating Council
Funded by: Student Government
Applications reviewed annually, Spring Quarter
The Program Coordinating Council (PCC) is comprised of representatives from the 6 PCC Groups (The Council on University Programming [COUP], Doc Films, Fire Escape Films, the Major Activities Board [MAB], University Theater [UT], and WHPK Radio Station), Student Government, and an ORCSA advisor. Only PCC groups can receive funding from PCC. Conversely, RSOs in PCC may not receive funding from other Student Government committees.
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Faculty, Full-Time Lecturers, and Instructors
Course Arts Resource Fund
Funded by: UChicago Arts Fund, in partnership with the UChicago Arts Pass program
Award Range: up to $500
Applications reviewed on a rolling basis
This special fund was established to help cover arts-related expenses for undergraduate and graduate courses. Instructors are invited to apply for small grants (up to $500) to defray the costs related to such arts activities as: inviting a visiting artist to class, organizing a class visit to a performance or exhibition, or providing arts materials for classroom use (recordings, videos, web page designs for arts materials, etc.).
UChicago Arts Grants
Funded by: UChicago Arts
Award range: up to $5,000
Currently on a temporary hiatus as of Spririg Quarter 2020.
The UChicago Arts Grant program solicits original ideas from faculty and staff for the creation and presentation of projects in the arts. We are particularly interested in funding projects that create collaboration between arts and other disciplines.
Logan Center
Funded by: Logan Center
The Logan Center helps to foster projects that support the enhancement of the arts at the University, increase collaboration across artistic disciplines and/or support our efforts to ensure that the Logan Center is a vibrant community asset. Logan Center staff works closely with faculty to integrate art into both discipline-specific and interdisciplinary curricular, co-curricular, and community engagement efforts. Funding is both direct and through providing space, technical staffing, project coordination, event and communications support.
Mellon Collaborative Fellowships for Arts Practice and Scholarship
Funded by: Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry
Award Range: $40,000-$60,000
The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is a laboratory where artists and scholars experiment with forms of collaboration. The Gray Center’s Mellon Collaborative Fellowship for Arts Practice and Scholarship program supports projects that bring together artists and scholars (one of whom will be a visiting fellow; the other, a University collaborator, i.e., a faculty members and lecturers) for a collaborative project that encompasses research, experimentation and pedagogy. Selected projects will receive $40,000-$60,000. The Gray Center recently launched a graduate student internship program in which internships are customized to particular Mellon Collaborative Fellowship projects. The Gray Center also runs the Gray Center Lab, a 1,100-square-foot space in Midway Studios that can be configured to serve as a classroom, studio, or workshop, exhibition, performance and presentation space. The Gray Center regularly partners with faculty and units across the university’s divisions to conceive and realize a diverse range of activities that explore and experiment with the ways in which scholars and artists can meaningfully intervene in and disrupt each other’s ways of knowing and doing.
Visiting Fellows
Funded by: Neubauer Collegium
The Neubauer Collegium supports Visiting Fellows associated with its research projects and also Fellows who will contribute to collaborative research at the University. Proposals for visitors may be submitted by any faculty member or group of faculty, and should describe how the Visiting Fellow will strengthen collaborative research on campus.
Faculty Research Projects
Funded by: Neubauer Collegium
Award Range: up to $100,000/year for up to three years
The Neubauer Collegium provides a range of funding for research projects, from seed awards up to $25,000/year to a small number of large-scale awards of $25,000– $100,000/year. Seed-level awards are intended for projects at early stages of development, or for projects that need strategic funds to explore new research trajectories. All levels of funding may be multi-year (1-3 years).
Women's Board Grants Fund
Funded by: Women's Board
Award range: $10,000 - $100,000, with most grants within the $25,000 – $60,000 range.
The Women’s Board Grants Fund is the result of our members’ annual contributions, which are then distributed each year to University of Chicago projects in all divisions, schools, and units. Women’s Board grants funding plays four distinct roles: catalyst funding for new projects, imprimatur funding to demonstrate community buy-in or endorsement by the Women’s Board, sustaining funding to support ongoing projects for which there is otherwise inadequate support, and capacity-building funding that covers one-time expenditures that further enriches and complements ongoing efforts at the University.
Inclusive Climate Grants
Funded by: Diversity and Inclusion Initiative
Award range: staged programs offer up to $100, $1000, $5,000, or $10,000
Currently suspended for the 2020-2021 Academic Year.
Proposals are accepted for projects and programs that further the inclusiveness of the campus environment and fuller participation of the University's members in the academic, professional, and extracurricular life of the campus.
Court Theatre
Funded by: Court Theatre
Through the Center for Classic Theatre and with the assistance of the Court Theatre Dramaturge, significant efforts are made to partner with faculty on projects.
University of Chicago Presents
Funded by: University of Chicago Presents
UCP works closely with faculty in the Music Department and across the University to link faculty interest to professional concerts that are presented with pre-concert talks, symposia, and related events.