Information for Faculty Supervisors

Jackman Scholars-in-Residence (SiR) is pleased to invite applications for faculty supervisors for SiR 2025, which will run from May 5 to 30, 2025 with up to 20 in-person projects at UT St George, UTM, and UTSC, and 5 additional online-only projects with an international scope. SiR is a 4-week research residency for upper-year undergraduates who work for 20 hours/week on faculty-led research projects in the Humanities and Social Sciences. SiR provides the student RAs with stipends as well as residence and partial board (for in-person projects). Your 5-person student team works on your project each weekday morning; in the afternoons, students take part in centrally organized research workshops, roundtable discussions, excursions, and community-building activities.

Benefits to supervisors: The Scholars-in-Residence program provides you with 5 outstanding paid RAs to work on your project for the 4 weeks of the program. In addition, SiR supervisors receive $2,000 in research funds from the Jackman Humanities Institute to support the activities of their research team. SiR handles the student application process centrally and supervisors select their research teams with guidance from the Advisory Committee. Faculty should be prepared to provide active supervision of their research teams throughout the 4-week project period. Since its inception in 2016, SiR has nurtured a close-knit, multidisciplinary, and intergenerational community of researchers. Faculty supervisors consistently report positive experiences of participating in the program and are frequently astounded by the results achieved by their undergraduate RA teams.

Research- and teaching-stream faculty in any unit affiliated with the Jackman Humanities Institute are invited to submit proposals: Arts & Science, Architecture, Law, Music, OISE, iSchool, UTM, and UTSC. We invite proposals for two types of projects:

(1) In-person, campus-based work in small research teams. Projects should fall within the JHI’s broad interpretation of the “Humanities” (including political theory, interpretive social science, education, music, architecture, and the arts). Selection criteria are the scholarly merit of the research proposal, the rationale for including undergraduate researchers in the project, and the expected benefit to students.

(2) Online/International projects. SiR 2025 will include a session of online-only projects with accompanying online workshops and activities for all students on these projects. Online projects are expected to draw on the flexibility of the virtual format for international research. Team members including faculty and student participants, guest speakers, and affiliated international research teams may be based remotely; there is no residence component for the online session. If you are proposing an online-only project, please specify the benefits for the international scope of the research; this will be one of the selection criteria.

For both in-person and online/international projects: In accordance with the University of Toronto’s priority of providing research opportunities for undergraduates, SiR aims to assist faculty in integrating undergraduate RAs into grant-funded projects. If you can commit grant funds from SSHRC, U of T, or other sources to support your undergraduate RAs, please specify the amount (up to $5,000) in your proposal. Commitment of grant funds is not required, but it will make a crucial difference to our ability to offer a full-size SiR program in 2025. 

Procedure: Proposals consist of a current CV and a 1–2 page Research Project Description that includes:

• specific information on the role of the student RAs and the benefit to students;
• whether you are proposing a regular in-person SiR project OR an online/international project;
• the proposed commitment of grant funds to support student RAs (if possible).

To apply, please submit your CV and 1–2-page Project Description to scholars.in.residence@utoronto.ca . Proposals due 11:59 p.m. on Friday, November 15, 2024.

Any questions pertaining to your proposal or the Scholars-in-Residence program may also be sent to scholars.in.residence@utoronto.ca. All applicants will be notified of decisions by Wednesday, December 18, 2024.