Towards Our Common Public Life
Funded by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, Toward Our Common Public Life (TCPL) will operate as a guidepost for current grant recipients, including the Public Theology and Racial Justice Collaborative, to collaborate as they work independently on their individual grant projects. The purpose is to foster greater communication and symmetry among grantees so that even greater collaboration among grant recipients can organically develop. This work will uncover the need for generative conversations that lead to connecting various projects to one another and to their communities of engagement. To achieve this, TCPL will facilitate a series of gatherings both in-person and virtual to initiate this cross-pollination between grantees. Learn more about the grant here.
See below for a list of TCPL team members.
Trans-Institutional Grants
All professional and graduate students from the VU schools are eligible to apply for individual grants of $250 to $1000 to explore small projects on public theology and racial justice.
Divinity and GDR Grants
These are small grants that are available to Divinity and GDR students for independent research projects related to public theology and racial justice. Grants from $250 to $1,000 may be awarded depending on the complexity and scope of the project. The Collaborative (program director, associate director and planning committee) will select the recipients.
Co-curricular program director grants
The four VDS co-curricular program directors for the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions, the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality, the Kelly Miller Institute for Black Church Studies, and the Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture are eligible for one grant each of $10,000.
Collaborative Fellows
These large grants available to Divinity and GDR students are a one-time stipend of $5,000 to $10,000, not tied to financial aid. Collaborative Fellows are selected by the director, associate director, and the Planning Committee through an application process. The fellows are supervised by the associate director and may work with a faculty member on a project or with a local community organization to develop a project that addresses the pressing issues facing the community. Fellows must produce a project with an impact that relates directly to the Collaborative. These projects represent a longer-term effort that requires significant time commitment and focus. At the project’s culmination, fellows will hold a community-wide presentation to demonstrate the outcomes of their project and its impact on public theology and racial justice (this may be a talk, performance, or report that engages VDS and VU communities and wider public in an open forum).
Selection based on:
proposal strength, impact on public theology and racial justice
previous course work
area of academic focus
faculty recommendation
scope of the project