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Biological Sciences
Funding from the Women’s Board will enable six students assisting
Paul Sereno, Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology, to clean skeletons and artifacts brought backby the 2006 archaeological expedition to Niger. These student
researchers will have the opportunity to learn every aspect of bone preparation and the unveiling of a major archaeological discovery. They will also witness international collaboration, as archaeologists, archaeozoologists and geologists visit the lab to examine thematerials as they are exposed. Amount awarded: $20,000.
Social Sciences
The Women’s Board is providing seed money for the Archaeology Department’s upcoming excavation of the remains of the Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. This high-visibility project is part of a larger effort at the University to establish a permanent Chicago Archaeology Program that will become an important venue for future faculty research, graduate student training and research, undergraduate education, and community outreach. Amount awarded: $24,640.
Harris School of Public Policy
Developing countries spend millions of dollars each year endeavoring to educate primary and secondary school children via distance learning programs, but no one has ever determined whether such measures are effective. The Women’s Board will match funds provided by a member of the Dean’s International Council of the Harris School to conduct a feasibility study ( the results of which are eagerly awaited by UNESCO) for the development of a distance learning program in developing countries. The study aims to assess the best way to use technology to bring higher-quality teaching services to children in poor and remote areas of developing countries and how to design the program and a high-quality evaluation of its outcome.
Amount awarded: $35,000.
Divinity School
Teaching has evolved considerably since most Women’s Board members were in school. Today, professors at the Divinity School use multimedia equipment to enable an entire classroom to do things like view rare research materials on the Web or visit blogs dealing with cutting-edge religious and cultural topics. Moneys from the Women’s Board will enable the Divinity School to turn two classrooms into such “smart” classrooms and enhance the quality of students’ learning experiences. Amount awarded: $28,410.
Court Theatre
The Women’s Board will be the primary sponsor of Court Theatre’s opening play of the 2007-08 season, Seneca’s Thyestes. Directed by renowned artist and educator JoAnne Akalaitis, in a recent translation by provocative British dramatist Caryl Churchill, Court’s production will coincide with a reissuing of Seneca’s complete works in new translations by members of the University of Chicago Classics Department. Amount awarded: $50,000.
Middle East Music Ensemble
The Middle East Music Ensemble explores a variety of classical, neoclassical, and popular forms from throughout the Middle East, encompassing compositional and improvisational techniques unique to non-Western musical culture. Members perform on traditional instruments, often in company with noted guest artists, in multiple concerts both on and off campus. The Ensemble’s increasing popularity has led it to seek out bigger venues, but it can be difficult to hear the group in such spaces without a sound system. Moneys from the Women’s Board will provide amplification equipment, enabling the Ensemble to perform in larger spaces and accommodate its growing audience. Amount awarded: $8,373.
Oriental Institute
The Persepolis Fortification Archive is the largest, richest and most important source of documentary information from the heart of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (550-330 BC). Approximately 20,000 tablets and fragments from the Persepolis Fortification Archive are currently housed at the Oriental Institute. Their future is at risk because of a lawsuit seeking the right to sell these artifacts on the open market to satisfy a judgment against Iran, raising a real danger that the archive will be lost to further research. The Oriental Institute is carrying out an emergency program to record as much of the archive as possible, as quickly as possible, and to make the results widely available to scholars. Our funding will enable the Oriental Institute to purchase a Compact Phoenix laser system for precise cleaning of these fragile clay tablets and fragments from the Archive so that they can be recorded. Amount awarded: $63,500.
Immigrant Children’s Advocacy Center (Law School)
The Center provides guardians ad litem for unaccompanied immigrant children who are in federal custody. These are children who have traveled from all corners of the world without their parents or traditional caregivers and who are arrested and detained by immigration authorities as they try to enter the United States. Moneys from the Women’s Board will enable two summer interns, in addition to working directly with immigrant children, to focus on developing protocols for working with children in situations in which smugglers and traffickers hire attorneys to represent the children. Amount awarded: $10,000.
Chicago Studies Program and BA Thesis Publication Series
Building upon its strong existing curriculum, the College has implemented a concentration in Chicago studies. Moneys from the Women’s Board will support a workshop series and publication of BA theses for students pursuing this concentration. Amount awarded: $10,000.
University Ballet. The University Ballet, founded five years ago, already has an ambitious performance schedule (featuring two programs each year, one of which is a full-length ballet) and offers classes to students and faculty. It has also established a strong partnership with Hubbard Street Dance. The Women’s Board is proud to support this accomplished group by buying a backdrop picturing an ocean or lake bordered by trees, and a scrim depicting a formal palace garden. These pieces will first be seen in the spring 2008 production of Le Corsair.
Amount awarded: $6,425.
Office of Minority Student Affairs (OMSA)
Moneys from the Women’s Board will fund a pilot program to enable economically disadvantaged minority students to take preparatory courses for graduate school entrance exams. This funding supplements a broader effort by OMSA to prepare students of color for graduate and professional schools, including workshops that address the application and admission process. Amount awarded: $12,400.
Jeff Metcalf Fellows Program
The Women’s Board will sponsor four Metcalf Fellows this year. These summer internships, at nonprofit institutions, would not exist without funding to pay a modest stipend to participants. Past Women’s Board Metcalf Fellows have worked at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Field Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust and the History Makers, among others. Amount awarded: $16,000.
Recruiting Immersion Corps
Seed money from the Women’s Board will fund a pilot project sponsored by the Office of Career and Placement Services (CAPS). Based upon last year’s successful pilot program for students pursuing business careers, this initiative will provide students in the humanities and sciences with the opportunity to attend a 2 ½-day “camp” covering (1) career exploration and concentration, (2) résumé, cover letter, and interviewing skill development and (3) networking and alumni communications. Amount awarded: $15,000.
Human Rights Internships
Three undergraduate and/or graduate students will receive summer 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. Amount awarded: $15,000.
Comprehensive Diabetes Center (CDC)
The University’s new CDC provides a patient-centered, science-based approach for managing diabetes, aimed at reaching those individuals who may not have access to leading diabetes technologies and treatments. Funding from the Women’s Board will be used to purchase three continuous glucose monitoring devices and related educational materials, enabling low -income patients to use these devices for short periods of time in order to better monitor their glucose readings after meals, exercise, etc. and make appropriate lifestyle changes. Amount awarded: $10,000.
Collegiate Scholars Program
The Collegiate Scholars Program (CSP) prepares Chicago Public Schools’ most promising high school students to succeed at the nation’s top colleges and universities by providing high-quality educational and youth development activities. (Our first Women’s Board Scholar, Li An Kwan, is a product of CSP.) The Women’s Board will provide initial funding for Transitioning College to Careers, which includes two major components: a Language for Scholars public speaking and communication skills course and a series of Career Roundtables that bring participants in contact with Chicago area professionals in fields such as business, medicine, law, engineering, education and the arts. Amount awarded: $10,000.
Civic Knowledge Project
“Winning Words” is an outreach program created and run by undergraduate students that engages students in thirteen local Chicago public middle schools. Women’s Board funding will support a new initiative that blends theater, creative writing, and speech. Over the course of the program, students will write creative stories, adapt them into original scripts, and give public performances. Amount awarded: $11,000.
STRIVE Program for Sickle Cell Anemia Patients at La Rabida
Project HEALTH, which will oversee the STRIVE program, is a national organization serving Boston, New York, and other cities. Women’s Board funding will enable volunteers to provide low-income teens who have sickle cell anemia with peer support, mentoring, disease management counseling and tutoring. Students will work closely with the teens’ caregivers at La Rabida to lay the groundwork for a sustained health intervention that could potentially affect the lives of hundreds of at-risk children on the South Side of Chicago for years to come. Amount awarded: $20,248.
Project Aspire
The University is launching an initiative to help underserved children who have undergone cochlear implantation surgery (a surgical procedure that introduces them to a world of sound). The rehabilitation process following the operation is essential as these children learn to master hearing, listening, and communication. Moneys from the Women’s Board will fund curriculum development for this new program. Amount awarded: $19,000.
Project Funding for Prior Years:
2007-2008 | 2006-2007 | 2005-2006 | 2004-2005.