This program provides release time from teaching and service obligations for faculty members to complete comprehensive projects of proven scholarly merit. The program compensates the university for hiring part-time instruction or for providing overload instruction by other faculty, in order to allow individuals to be released from one, or, in special circumstances, two courses during one semester. Compensation should be the standard rate for part-time per course compensation.

The criteria for selection of proposals would include:

• The project must be of significant stature, generally on the order of a single-author book, or a large edited volume, or a translation, or an edition. The presumption is that textbooks are not likely to qualify for support.
• The project must be of proven scholarly merit. Measures of merit can include previous publications such as books, book chapters, or journal articles resulting from the project, or high ratings from external reviewers, or commitment from an academic press. Publications and other evidence of merit should themselves be of established authority in the relevant area of inquiry or in the humanities generally.
• The project should make a direct contribution to scholarship in the humanities, and adhere to those scholarly methods characteristic of the humanities, although it need not be limited to such methods.
• The project must be close to completion. The proposal must demonstrate that the anticipated work can be completed in the allocated time, and that this work will be sufficient to meet external standards of completion. For example, a proposal to be funded to complete a book might include an outline of the publication history of related work, an outline of the proposed book, a schedule for the work to be completed, and a publisher's contract.

Proposals for funding should be developed in consultation with the Director of the Center and submitted to the Board, which will grant the awards. Although funds will be allocated each year for this program, no awards need be granted if the Board has insufficient confidence in the proposals submitted.

Proposals should be submitted in the form of a prospectus, along with supporting materials (including a letter from the department chair) and a current vitae.