Provost Awards Grants to 16 Faculty Groups for Interfaculty Collaboration

Provost Harvey V. Fineberg has awarded grants to 16 faculty working groups from the new Provost's Fund for Interfaculty Collaboration. The fund supports faculty discussion and collaboration on topics of mutual intellectual interest to faculty members in several schools.

This was the first round of grants for the new fund. To qualify, working groups had to include at least six faculty members from at least three different schools. "The response from faculty was vigorous," said Fineberg. "I am very impressed at the creative ideas for collaboration among our faculty."

The purpose of the seed grants is to support intellectual exchange across Faculties. "I hope that this will have several results: first, that collaborative research and teaching will emerge, and second, that, this will have a positive effect on the work of individual faculty members," noted Provost Fineberg. The working groups awarded grants cover a broad range of topics, from environmental risk assessment to aging to women and public policy.

The next round of grants will be made in the summer of 1999, in order to bring the grant cycle in line with the academic year. More detailed information, both about the application process and the working groups funded, is available electronically on the Provost's Fund Web page, www.provost.harvard.edu/provost_fund, or by contacting Assistant Provost Sarah Wald at 496-5775.

The groups awarded grants were:

Topic: Mathematical Biology; Faculty Leaders: Professor Tamara Awerbuch and Professor Richard Levins, School of Public Health.

Topic: Evaluating End of Life Care; Faculty Leader: Professor David Cutler, Faculty of Arts & Science.

Topic: Women and Public Policy; Faculty Leader: Professor Anna Greenberg, Kennedy School of Government.

Topic: Frequency and Impact of Keyboard-Associated Upper Extremity Disorders at Harvard University; Faculty Leader: Doctor Jeffrey Katz, Harvard Medical School.

Topic: Tacit Knowledge; Faculty Leader: Professor Dorothy Leonard, Harvard Business School.

Topic: Interfaculty Colloquium in Architectural History; Faculty Leader: Professor Neil Levine, Faculty of Arts & Science.

Topic: Aging; Faculty Leader: Professor Sue Levkoff, Harvard Medical School.

Topic: Summer Institute for the Training Program in Inequality and Social Policy; Faculty Leader: Professor Katherine Newman, Kennedy School of Government.

Topic: Persuasion; Faculty Leader: Professor Gary Orren, Kennedy School of Government.

Topic: Evaluation of Medical and Educational Practice; Faculty Leader: Professor Paul Peterson, Kennedy School of Government.

Topic: Interpersonal Violence; Faculty Leader: Professor Deborah Prothrow-Stith, School of Public Health.

Topic: Assessing Environmental Risks in the Community; Faculty Leader: Professor Louise Ryan, School of Public Health.

Topic: Prevention of Adolescent Habituation to Nicotine and to Alcohol; Faculty Leader: Professor Robert Selman, Graduate School of Education.

Topic: Communities; Faculty Leader: Professor John Spengler, School of Public Health.

Topic: Who Provides: Religion, Civil Society and the Welfare State; Faculty Leader: Dean Ronald Thiemann, Harvard Divinity School.

Topic: Environmental Justice; Faculty Lead: Professor Timothy Weiskel, Harvard Divinity School.