Mission Statement
The Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts seeks to renew and enhance the connections between Christianity and the academic vocation at church-related colleges and universities.
The Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, based in Christ College, the interdisciplinary honors college of Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, seeks to strengthen the quality and shape the character of church-related institutions of higher learning in the twenty-first century.
The Program sustains three distinct yet integrated initiatives.
The first is a collaborative National Network of Church-Related colleges and universities that sponsors a variety of activities and publications designed to explore the Christian character of the academic vocation and to strengthen the religious nature of church related institutions.
The second is the Lilly Graduate Fellows Program, which supports, during their first three years of graduate school, young men and women of exceptional academic talent who are exploring vocations in church-related higher education.
The third is a residential, two-year Postdoctoral Teaching Fellows Program at Valparaiso University for young scholars who wish to renew their sense of vocation within a Christian community of learning in order to prepare themselves for positions of teaching and leadership within church-related institutions.
Together these programs bring focus, clarity, and energy to a critical aspect of a much larger project: the imaginative reformulation and implementation of an agenda for church-related higher learning in the twenty-first century.
The Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts is funded by Valparaiso University, the LFP National Network of church-related colleges and universities, and a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc., an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation.
Program Purposes
- Identify and publicize highly qualified scholars who seek to explore their academic vocations in church-related contexts.
- Nurture intellectual and spiritual virtues in young scholars at the graduate and post-doctoral level as they prepare for teaching careers in church-related institutions.
- Prepare academic leaders to serve in institutions with a strong sense of Christian identity and mission.
- Generate a national discussion about the relationship between Christianity and the academic vocation.
- Encourage and support research and publication about various aspects of faith and learning, the Christian vocation of teaching, and church-related higher education.
- Sustain a network of church-related colleges and universities interested in exploring these issues.
- Fund seminars, conferences, and various programs on network campuses that directly benefit members of network institutions.
