The New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities program funded the composition of the opera, said Faith Hawkins, program director for the New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities.
The Bicentennial Strategic Plan recently proposed that IU continue the program, which funds arts and humanities projects, until the bicentennial.
“There’s only a very small portion of funding to support artists’ and humanists’ work,” Hawkins said. “The National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health have billions and billions of dollars for funding of science. “In contrast, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities have really tiny funding amounts.”
That’s where the New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities program steps in, Hawkins said.
This year, the program will award grants through four distinct-funding programs, according to IU’s Research Gateway website.
New Frontiers of Creativity and Scholarship awards up to $50,000 to assist in the development of innovative works and creative activity.
New Currents awards up to $20,000 to fund workshops or conferences with distinguished experts on timely topics.
New Frontiers Exploratory Travel Fellowships awards up to $3,000 to support national and international travel.
The newest program, New Frontiers Experimentation, awards up to $15,000 to fund the preliminary stages of new trajectories in innovative work or creative ?activity.
“The idea is sometimes somebody wants to do something that is just a little bit off from what they’ve always done,” Hawkins said.
A faculty peer review committee evaluates all applications, recommending certain applications to Vice President for Research Jorge José.
“The committee involves faculty from a variety of disciplines in the arts and humanities and from a variety of IU campuses,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins said the number and size of grants awarded within each program depends on the number and size of applications submitted for each program, though the number of grants awarded has ranged from 18 to 35.
“We want to fund excellence,” she said. “If that means that in a particular year we have 30 excellent proposals in the major funding category, if we can fund all 30, we will do everything we can to fund all 30. If we only have 10 excellent proposals, we will only fund 10.”
Jeffrey Hass, Jacobs School of Music professor of music composition, received four grants through the program, funding the creation of a symphony, the production of two dance videos and the costs of travelling to Australia to present about modern dance.
“If the University considers all of its disciplines equally important — arts, humanities, science — then it’s really worthwhile that they continue to fund (the program),” Hass said. “To give arts and humanities the same chance that science has to grow and flourish.”
Hawkins said funding the arts and humanities is just as important as funding the sciences.
“Artistic and humanistic creative activity, in my view, is what makes us human,” she said. “It’s what makes us unique.”
