Faculty Writing Groups and Retreats

Description

Faculty Writing Groups and Retreats bring UW faculty together to work intensively on drafts of their scholarly projects, engage in conversational peer review, share advice and resources, and develop their research-in-progress in a crossdisciplinary, supportive, and productive setting. We expect that these groups will provide a strong foundation for faculty to eventually bring their work, whether individually or co-authored, in the humanities and humanistic social sciences to publication. We also conceptualize these working groups, some of which might hold retreats at the Whiteley Center, as an important form of intellectual community. This is a pilot program, inspired by the number of writing groups we’ve seen proliferating across the University of Washington—from highly structured writing retreats off campus to more casual groups meeting at the Simpson Center. 

Eligibility 

Groups must be led by and consist of tenure-track faculty and/or teaching faculty at all ranks (limited to the two ladders: assistant, associate, and full professors and assistant, associate, and full teaching professors). They may include members from and be led by faculty from across the UW tri-campus. 

For questions regarding eligibility, please be in touch with Simpson Center Associate Director Rachel Arteaga.

Terms of Award

Groups will independently determine when to meet—it could be one intensive week, a multi-day writing retreat, or regularly scheduled meetings over the course of the academic year—but the expectation is that each group will convene, in-person, for a minimum of 20 hours during the funding term and that groups will be equitable in terms of attention to work-in-progress, for example, taking care to ensure that every member of the group has an opportunity to informally share or discuss their writing. 

Groups may begin their activities on September 15, 2025. All activities must be concluded by June 15, 2026.

Every participant will receive $500 in compensation; group leaders will receive $750. Funds will be distributed in the form of research budgets through a reimbursement process. No additional funds will be allocated for day-to-day activities (for honoraria, for example, or refreshments).

If an off-campus, multi-day retreat is preferred, groups may apply for support for a writing retreat to be held at the Whiteley Center at Friday Harbor Laboratories. (Other locations for writing retreats will not be considered.) Writing retreats may be planned for up to three nights of lodging and are restricted to the UW faculty who are directly participating in the Faculty Writing Group. To request this additional support, please complete the budget template and submit it with your application materials.

All Faculty Writing Groups will be asked to submit a brief report on their experience, as well as summaries of projects that participants worked on in the group setting and the dates they met.

Criteria

The size of each group must be between a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 participants. Groups must draw participants from at least 2 different departments (or, within the Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at Bothell and Tacoma structure, from different disciplines).

Faculty Writing Groups support writing in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Projects to be undertaken might include scholarly articles, monographs, essays, reviews, white papers developing a theoretical approach, or work in emerging academic genres. 

Questions

Please direct any questions to Rachel Arteaga, Simpson Center Associate Director, at rarteaga@uw.edu.