Photo: Women's Board program at Smart Museum
Cosmophilia exhibit at the Smart Museum
of Art, funded by the Women’s Board
Each year, the Women's Board makes grants in the following areas: faculty research and support, cultural institutions, student life, and community outreach. We seek especially to fund "but for" projects – those worthwhile endeavors that could not go forward without our support. This year, the Women's Board sought to materially increase the impact of its funding by actively soliciting proposals for high impact funding. •

2006-2007 Projects

The Women's Board has awarded grants in the amount of $359,000 for its 2006-2007 fiscal year in the areas of Faculty Research and Support, Cultural Institutions, Quality of Student Life and Community Outreach. This record level of funding represents a more than 150 percent increase from the annual amount awarded in 2000, and is made possible solely through the generous contributions of members of the Women's Board. Three Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars of the amount awarded is to be raised during the period July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007, and $9,000 represent the proceeds of a prior grant that was unspent for unforeseen reasons and reallocated by the Projects Committee for use during the coming academic year.

Faculty Research and Support

Physical Sciences. The Enrico Fermi Institute is the site of interdisciplinary research in the Physical Sciences and Mathematics. Its faculty currently includes a Nobel Prize winner and some of the leading scientists in the world. The Institute also provides important engineering, technical and administrative support to its faculty. Funding from the Women's Board will be used to replace the electronic controls for an overhead crane and purchase a new overhead door in the Accelerator Building. These critical repairs are required to ensure the safe assembly and timely transport of scientific equipment headed to experiments all over the world, including the South Pole. Amount awarded: $47,900.

Social Sciences. Funding from the Women's Board will equip state of the art Interactoinal Analysis Research and Training Laboratories for new Anthropology faculty member Robin Shoaps. These facilities will enable researchers to analyze sound and video recordings of human interaction, an area that has fueled recent theoretic advances in both linguistics and linguistic anthropology.
Amount awarded: $34,179.

Humanities. Assistant Professor of Classics Helma Dik is constructing a website that will revolutionize the study of Ancient Greek grammar throughout the academic world by enabling students and scholars to access grammatical information at multiple levels, from the most basic to the most sophisticated. The Women's Board is pleased to provide support for Professor Dik's project to Build a New Greek Grammar. Amount awarded: $20,860.

Funding from the Women's Board will also enable the Humanities Digital Media Archives to digitize a selection of endangered holdings of valuable and unique audio recordings of under-represented indigenous language groups from the 1930's to the 1970's. Amount Awarded: $9,000.

Biological Sciences. Funding from the Women's Board will enable the Committee on Evolutionary Biology to purchase four sets of two way radios with Global Positioning Systems.

Faculty and student researchers, who work in remote areas all over the world, are contributing new knowledge and developing policy in the areas of biodiversity, conservation, ecology, biogeography. These radios will enable them to maintain vital contact with fellow team members and improve the safety of their research missions. Amount awarded: $3,745.

Cultural Institutions and The Arts

Smart Museum. The Women's Board is pleased to be the Primary Sponsor of the Smart Museum's Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen exhibition in 2007. This exquisite collection will travel to only two cities in the United States, and in Chicago will be a major component of the year long Silk Road Celebration organized by Yo Yo Ma, the City of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Art Institute. This high visibility exhibition will be accompanied by a full range of collaborative programs developed in coordination with the University's faculty for school children as well as the larger community.
Amount awarded: $75,000.

Oriental Institute. The University and the Syrian Department of Antiquities are jointly excavating a large site at Hamoukar in northern Syria. The Oriental Institute is currently the only United States institution permitted to dig in Syria. Monies from the Women's Board will pay for a Magnetometric Survey of Hamoukar, thus enabling the OI to apply for National Science Foundation funding (which it is confident it will receive) for future excavations and research into the origins of one of the world's truly urban ancient societies. (see 'Evidence of battle at Hamoukar points to early urban development'). Amount awarded: $21,404

Quality of Student Life

Family Resource Center. Funding from the Women's Board will equip and pay for the first two years of operations for this new center, which will serve as a key resource in promoting a healthy work/life balance for the 500-600 graduate students with children at the University. At the Center, families will have group play space with books and toys, and mothers will have a quiet room to breast feed their children (see 'student parents get helping hand').
Amount awarded: 42,037.

Department of Music. The Women's Board is pleased to provide funds for the purchase of a concert grand harp for use by qualified students who are active in the Department's performance program. The Department has seven student harpists this year, only half of whom own their own instrument. The harp will be used in concerts at Mandel Hall, Rockefeller Chapel and Fulton Recital Hall.
Amount awarded: $17,595

Jeff Metcalfe Student Internships. The Women's Board will sponsor four Metcalfe Interns this year, in support of Dean John Boyer's initiative to provide valuable internship experience to students in the College. These internships – all of which will be at nonprofit institutions or governments - would not exist without funding to pay a modest stipend to participants. Prior Women's Board Metcalfe Fellows have worked at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Field Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust and The History Makers, among others. Here is a list of all of the organizations providing Metcalfe Internships to University students in 2006. Amount awarded: $16,000.

Chicago Careers in Business GSB Student Mentors. Seed money from the Women's Board will fund a pilot project sponsored by the Office of Career and Placement Services (CAPS) that will match undergraduates desiring to pursue an MBA with a mentor at the Graduate School of Business. These mentors will provide practical advice and guidance on a wide range of topics related to the first postgraduate job and preparation for eventual entry into business school. If this project (created in response to student demand) is successful, this project will receive permanent funding from the College.
Amount awarded: $11,280.

Human Rights Internships. Three undergraduate and/or graduate students will receive internships from the Women's Board, enabling them to work for agencies both in the United States and abroad that work to improve human rights conditions in their native countries. These internships embody the Human Rights Program's mission to create a human rights paradigm that emerges from the liberal arts, is applicable in the contemporary world and links theory and practice as well as local and global perspectives. Here is a listing of 2005 internship sites.
Amount awarded: $15,000.

Court Theatre. The Women's Board is delighted to provide funding for a wide variety of academic year internships at Court Theatre. These interns will have the opportunity to explore the many facets of running a theatre and producing plays, including directing, marketing, set design and theatre management. Amount awarded: $10,000.

Community Outreach

Books for the University's Charter Schools. The University's Center for School Improvement operates three charter schools in the neighborhoods around the University. (http://usi.uchicago.edu/aboutnew.html#nko) These schools require seed money to create classroom libraries of high interest books as well as collections of books that children may take home to read. Research shows children reading independently or being read to for at least 30 minutes per day promotes literacy achievement. Since many of the children entering the charters schools read far below grade level, the Center's two pronged approach of classroom and home reading is critical to these students' academic advancement. Amount awarded: $15,000.

Educational Advancement through Academic Competition. Funding from the Women's Board will provide funding to develop and operate this new pilot program which will run math and debate competitions in ten local elementary schools. The programs involve weekly after-school practices, a monthly competition and annual tournament. More than fifty University students will participate in this program, which is overseen by the Office of Special Programs and the University Community Service Center. Amount awarded: $20,000.

Prior Years

Project Funding for Prior Years:
2007-2008 | 2006-2007 | 2005-2006 | 2004-2005.