Short-term fellowship awards range from $5,000 to $15,000 based on the applicant’s proposed budget.
Long-term fellowship awards range from $20,000 to $45,000 based on the applicant’s proposed budget.
The Virginia Humanities HBCU Scholars Fellowship is designed to support and elevate underrepresented voices in the humanities by providing meaningful resources for research, scholarship, and public engagement.
The program’s mission is to develop work that bridges academic inquiry and public impact, particularly projects that explore Virginia’s history, historically marginalized narratives, and broader South Atlantic themes, while amplifying research by scholars affiliated with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Fellows receive financial support, access to academic publishing outlets, professional community and peer support, and opportunities for public dissemination of their work.
This fellowship offers flexible engagement through both short-term (3–6 months) and long-term (9–12 months) tracks, accommodating a range of project scopes and applicant needs. Award amounts vary accordingly, and fellows gain access to resources including the University of Virginia’s library system and the archives at the Library of Virginia.
Participants also collaborate with peers, receive expert feedback, share their work through Virginia Humanities’ public programs, and present at cultural centers of their choosing.
HBCU affiliation is required and defined as current faculty or alumni (does NOT need to be a Virginia-based institution).
No residential requirement or Virginia address needed. This is a mostly remote opportunity with at least one in-person commitment at our office in Charlottesville.
Fellowship deliverables should result in a scholarly contribution or meaningful public humanities work engaging a large audience (e.g., journal article, book proposal, chapter or folio, higher-ed related pedagogical or curricular outcome, documentary, public project, etc.).
We do not fund advocacy or political action projects that promote a certain policy, exclusively K-12 focused work (please see our K-12 Educator fellowship), or non-humanities related projects.
Virginia Humanities is the state humanities council. We’re headquartered in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia, but we serve the entire state.
Founded in 1974, we are one of fifty-six humanities councils created by Congress with money and support from the National Endowment for the Humanities to make the humanities available to all Americans. As a non-partisan organization, we have been successful thanks to many years of strong bi-partisan commitment to our work at federal and state levels, as well as from the NEH itself.
