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CHA Reviewer Best Practices

We are sharing these guidelines��to ensure transparency and integrity in our selection processes. Our reviewers are members of the CHA��faculty steering committee; they are guided by principles of equity, inclusivity, and objectivity.

Applications will be read and reviewed in an objective and unbiased manner.

The strength of the proposal will be the main criterion for ranking all applications under review; letters, CVs., and other materials will be taken into consideration as secondary or tertiary to the proposal. Among the strengths of the applications will be its connection to the mission of the CHA, which means while we accept applications from faculty, staff, and students outside of units that are traditionally understood as arts and humanities, applications need to demonstrate their connection to humanities and arts methods, archives, research, practices, even if they are multi-disciplinary. Applications should also meet the criteria for the award/grant/fellowship – if a student is applying for a dissertation completion fellowship then the application should demonstrate that the student will finish their dissertation in the year they receive the fellowship.

Reviewers will recuse themselves from reading and ranking applications if there is a conflict of interest, which is defined as anyone who has a legal relationship with the applicant (partner, ex-partner, parent). Reviewers may also recuse themselves from reading applications from their home department, particularly during the first round of the Faculty Fellowship; however, discussion of final candidates is allowed after the initial review takes place. For graduate awards/grants/fellowships, reviewers need not recuse themselves from reading and reviewing applications from their home department; however, they will not review applications from graduate students whose committees they serve on, whether they are from their home department or not.

The contents of applications and the discussion of applications in all review committees are confidential -- information about applicants or the discussion of the applications may not be shared with others outside the review panel.

Reviewers will adhere to timelines for reading applications out of respect for their fellow committee members as well as the applicants. Whenever possible, applications will be read and rankings made two weeks (and no later than three weeks) after the advertised application deadline; however, given the length of the faculty fellowship proposal, exceptions can be made and a separate timeline and process developed when circumstances warrant.��

[UPDATE, FALL 2024: Due to staff shortages in the CHA office, we cannot guarantee that applicants will receive news 2-3 weeks after they have submitted their application. We understand that this is frustrating: we are frustrated too. And we hope we can receive authorization to hire permanent staff soon]

We expect our reviewers, as well as our applicants and award recipients, will adhere to and support our JEDI statement.

As we state at the start of this Best Practices document: “Applications will be read and reviewed in an objective and unbiased manner.” We believe CHA faculty (who serve as our reviewers) are people who strive to be unbiased and who will review applications in as unbiased a manner as they possibly can. We share this set of Best Practices with all our reviewers and remind them of these Best Practices when they receive applications.

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