President Theobald announced a new $500,000 seed fund for arts and humanities Tuesday during his first State of the University address to the Faculty Senate. Theobald said $250,000 would be distributed for each of the next two years, starting in early 2015, with funds from the president’s office reserve.
Theobald expressed hopes of having the program paid for by foundation funding in the long term. He said individual faculty could submit applications to the office of the senior vice provost for research before Feb. 1 of next year.
Michele Masucci, interim senior vice provost for research, said there will be funds for both individual and collaborative projects. Masucci added that more details will be announced on the program later this fall.
Speaking to an audience of around 100 administrators and faculty on the top floor of Alter Hall, Theobald stressed that he aims to continue increasing external funding for projects within the university.
Temple saw a nearly 13 percent rise in total science research funding during the last three years, fueled by a 6.5 percent rise in federal funding and $16.2 million in philanthropy.
“The demand for resources to fuel our faculty’s innovation, research and scholarship in the arts and humanities more than justifies this investment,” Theobald said. “We hope to fuel a new age of creativity at Temple whose impact will be felt around the world and the nation.”
Theobald also presented a new 60-second television commercial for the university. The new campaign, titled “Take Charge,” uses similar themes from the previous Temple Made campaign.
Theobald said the new marketing campaign will be fully unveiled later this fall.
Outside of these two announcements, most of the speech focused on looking back at Theobald’s six commitments, which he made nearly a year ago at his inauguration, and pointing to examples to show the progress of each commitment.
Although this was the first time a state of the university address was made, Theobald said he would like to hold the same event each fall to report the progress and challenges from the last year.
Marcus McCarthy can be reached at marcus.mccarthy@temple.edu.
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