Now accepting applications for Academic Year 2025-2026
Description
UTSA Special Collections Faculty Teaching in the Archives (FTIA) Grants are aimed at instructors who wish to enhance or create undergraduate or graduate courses using unique materials from Special Collections. These grants support the development of innovative primary source assignments and projects for students.
UTSA’s manuscript and rare book collections are well suited for teaching evidence-based research methods, public history, book studies (broadly defined), or material culture in a variety of subject areas and topics.
Our strengths include Latinx/Texas history and literature, Mexican culinary history, Chicano studies, women and gender studies, urban development, as well as book arts, printing, architecture, and photography documenting the region. Additionally, the University Archives provide a rich source of faculty and staff papers, UTSA photograph collections, and UTSA institutional history.
Eligibility
The grants are open to UTSA tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at any level. Interdisciplinary approaches are strongly encouraged.
Applicants must consult with the Special Collections librarian prior to applying in order to identify materials relevant to course topics.
Award
A $1,000 grant will be awarded to one recipient. The funds can be used for professional memberships, workshops, research, conferences, and similar activities. The recipient must work with the Libraries Business Service Center to process the approved expenses. The grant must be utilized by the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.
Selection Criteria
Successful proposals will demonstrate how students will benefit from the opportunity to select, analyze, and use primary sources to learn and create new knowledge. Proposals will be evaluated for
- Feasibility: Is the project realistic in terms of what can be accomplished? Does the proposal clearly communicate the project’s central goals, learning objectives, and approaches?
- Depth of integration: To what extent will special collections materials be integrated throughout the course
- Innovative pedagogy: Does the project employ well designed practices or approaches that are either new to the instructor, course, or department or new to the application of those practices? If so, how do these novel approaches facilitate student learning?
- Partnership building: Does the instructor-librarian/archivist collaboration help to build or strengthen connections between the academic program and the Libraries? What is the extent and the nature of the collaboration between the instructor and the librarian?
To Apply
Applicants are required to consult with the Special Collections librarian before applying in order to identify materials relevant to their course topics.
Submit a 2 to 3-page proposal narrative for developing a new course or redesigning an existing course that significantly utilizes the collections and resources of the UTSA Special Collections. The grant period for teaching the winning course proposal spans three semesters: Fall 2025, Spring 2026, or Summer 2026 (academic year 2025-2026).
Proposals should be accompanied by an endorsement from their Department Chair and sent directly to isis.brockman@utsa.edu.
All applications and Department Chair endorsements are due by midnight on April 16th, 2025. UTSA Special Collections will notify applicants of its decision on or around April 30th, 2025.