4 IU profs win Guggenheim Fellowship

This year four IU professors won a Guggenheim Fellowship. They are among the 189 scholars who have been selected out of almost 2,800 applicants. \n“It’s an exciting prospect,” said David Dzubay, one of the four IU professors to win the fellowship. “I’ll be able to concentrate a full year on music composition. It will be like being a student again.” \nDzubay is a professor of music, director of the New Music Ensemble and the chairman of the composition department at the IU Jacobs School of Music. His music is being performed almost all over the world. \nThe Guggenheim Fellowship is a prestigious research award for artists, scholars and scientists. The purpose of the fellowship is to stimulate research and creative work. Since its foundation in 1925, more than 16,000 individuals have received Guggenheim grants. Selections are based on recommendations of hundreds of expert advisers and are approved by the foundation’s board of trustees.\nThe fellowship is handed out to scholars working in a wide range of fields. This year’s fellows include writers, playwrights, sculptors, photographers, choreographers, painters, filmmakers and physical, social and biological scientists and scholars in humanities. Only scholars who have demonstrated a “distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for the future accomplishment” can win a fellowship, according to an IU press release. \nIU professor of Near Eastern languages and cultures John Walbridge earned a fellowship for past and future research in Islam. \n“I guess that my advantage was that people are getting more aware of the importance of Islam,” he said.\nWalbridge will be spending one year in Istanbul, Turkey, to research the philosophic foundation of medieval Islamic medical series. \nThe other two IU professors to earn fellowships – science historian Domenico Bertoloni-Meli and sociologist Pamela Barnhouse Walters – will also spend a year researching. Bertoloni-Meli will bring his research project about 17th-century anatomy and physiology to completion. \nIU has been home to a total of 123 Guggenheim Fellows. Since 1998, at least one IU faculty member has won a fellowship. \nIU supports the four professors financially to allow them to be absent from teaching for an entire year. \n“IU stimulates us to spend some time on research or writing books. The Guggenheim Fellowship covers for a half year of salary, which is approximately $45,000. The other half is paid by IU,” Walbridge said. “It’s important for my students that I spend some time in Islamic countries.”\nThe winning scholars are free to use the grants however it suits them. Creative freedom is very important to the Guggenheim Foundation. \n“I’ll go to places such as California and Italy to work together with other artists,” Dzubay said. \nBertoloni-Meli will also go on research trips to various locations, including Washington, D.C., and Italy.\n“I’m very happy to devote myself to this project,” he said.