Contextualizing Duke’s Centennial: Exploring the Past to Shape Our Vision for the Future

Important Note: This RFP is only for 2023-2024 projects or courses related to the centennial. Our next general call for Bass Connections projects will be issued in August 2023.

Deadline: April 3, 2023 at 5:00 p.m.

Opportunity

Bass Connections brings together faculty and students of all levels to tackle complex societal issues through interdisciplinary research projects and courses. 

This is a special call for proposals for Bass Connections project teams or project-based courses related to Duke’s Centennial. The maximum budget for a year-long project team is $25,000; funding for a course development grant is $5,000 (or $10,000 for co-taught courses) with the option of an additional $1,750 to support 75 hours of a doctoral student’s time to support elements of the course design. Course development proposals may focus on the creation of an entirely new course or embedding a Centennial-related collaborative project in an existing course.

The Centennial

In 2024 and the first half of 2025, Duke will celebrate its centennial. This is a special call for Bass Connections projects or courses that seek to explore/examine elements of Duke’s past, present and future through collaborative research. This opportunity provides space for faculty and students to undertake an academic exploration of Duke during this milestone and represents an important avenue to engage the community in clarifying and advancing Duke’s aspirations for the next century. 

Research questions may include, but are not limited to, documenting, analyzing and exploring:

• the evolving relationship between Duke and Durham (e.g., the community’s role in shaping the university; the university’s role in shaping Durham’s politics, culture and economy; relationships and power dynamics between the university and the community)
• the changing social experience of Duke students, faculty, and staff, including the impact of twentieth- and twenty-first century social movements on the campus (e.g., civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, rights of indigenous peoples)
• the internationalization of Duke as it has become a global university, attracting larger numbers of students from outside the United States, recruiting faculty whose research focuses on topics outside America, and developing partnerships with campuses in Singapore and China
• the place of religion, sports and/or the arts in the life of the university
• the influence of major events such as war, pandemics and financial crises on Duke’s campus
• the impact of trends and transformations in American higher education on Duke (e.g., the dynamics of public funding, public perceptions of higher education, the embrace of interdisciplinary modes of scholarship and education, the links between academic research and innovation and policy)
• the emergence of new areas of research and teaching, whether in response to curiosity-driven discoveries or engagement with societal problems

Such projects could embrace a range of research methods including oral histories, engagement with Duke Archives, data analysis and text mining of digitized sources like the Duke Chronicle. Project teams or courses might result in an equally creative range of outputs such as exhibits, digital archives, websites, podcasts, data visualizations and white papers. Faculty are encouraged to propose projects or courses that engage with community partners where relevant and bring a range of voices to bear on these research questions. 

Proposal Guidelines and Submission

The deadline for proposals is Monday, April 3, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. Before applying, please review our proposal guidelines (linked in the table below). All proposals must be submitted through the online submission forms. You may work directly within the online form and save and return to the form as you work. You may also preview the proposal questions and draft your responses using the templates linked below.

For questions or to discuss potential ideas, contact:

Laura Howes, Director, Bass Connections
laura.howes@duke.edu
(919) 684-9021