Grants

Thanks to generous funding from the Dowd Foundation, the Capitalism Studies program has been able to offer several grant opportunities for faculty and students at UNC Charlotte. If you have questions about these opportunities, please contact Dr. Jurgen Buchenau, Dowd Term Chair of Capitalism Studies and director of the program, at jbuchenau@charlotte.edu.

Faculty Research Grant ($7,500). Between 2020 and 2023, the program made an annual award of one grant, to support a UNC Charlotte faculty research project focused on capitalism. The first awardee, named in 2020, was Sociology professor Dr. Yang Cao, for his project entitled “Market Transition and Cultural Change in 21st Century China: An Empirical Examination through the Lens of Work Values.” The second awardee, in 2021, was Dr. Sonya Ramsey, of the History department, for her project, on African American women industrial workers in the Carolinas, 1960s-2000s. The third awardee, in 2022, was Dr. Matthew Rowney, an English professor, who is working on a project about industrial tourism in nineteenth-century Britain. The final awardee, in 2023, was Dr. Ashli Stokes from the Communication Studies Department. This program has exhausted its funding and is currently paused until further notice.

Student Research Grant ($6,500). The summer research grant opportunity was open to all undergraduate students of any major or minor; Capitalism Studies minors were especially encouraged to apply. A $750 stipend is available for a faculty advisor to the student using the grant. The first recipients of this grant, for research to be conducted in summer 2022, were Ana Urrutia, a Latin American Studies major, and Andrew Arthur, a history major. Ms. Urrutia’s research is concerned with transformation of the Chilean health care industry in the 1970s and 1980s; Mr. Arthur is studying Bank of England monetary policy and currency reform in the Irish Free State, in the early twentieth century. The final research grant, in 2023, went to Mr. Lee Queveon Tate for a study of Charlotte’s Brooklyn neighborhood. This program has exhausted its funding and is currently paused until further notice.

Course Development Grants ($2,000). The program has been making an annual award of up to two grants, to support the development of new courses, which will enrich students’ understanding of capitalism, past, present, and future. In 2020, the awardees were Dr. Justin Grandinetti, Department of Communication Studies, for his proposed course, “Examining Digital and Technological Capitalism,” and the two-person team of Dr. Jason Giersch and Dr. Zach Mohr, from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, for their course, “Personal Finance and Political Economy.” In 2021, the course development grant went to Dr. Christopher Cameron, of the Department of History, for a new course on “The Market Revolution.” In 2022, two grants went to Dr. Jill Yavorsky, in the Department of Sociology, and Dr. Dan Du, in the Department of History. Dr. Yavorsky is designing a course on class inequality and economic elites. Dr. Du is creating a course on the history of capitalism in China, over the last 750 years. The most recent awardee is Dr. Hania Al-Shamat from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. Dr. Al-Shamat is creating a course on capitalism in the Middle East and North Africa. Pending funding, the program will make one more award in 2024.