Opportunities

Call for Applications: 2026 CUNY Adjunct Incubator Grants

Deadline

June 22, 2026

at 11:59 PM

The CUNY Adjunct Incubator will support and highlight  the significant, critical and community-engaged scholarship and pedagogy work of CUNY Graduate Center student instructors (in years 6 and beyond) teaching as adjuncts across CUNY in 2026-2027.

Co-sponsored and housed at the Center for the Humanities and the Gittell Urban Studies Collective, the Adjunct Incubator aims to:

• Call public attention to graduate students’ valuable contributions to classes and departments across CUNY;
• Support GC student adjuncts and their teaching, scholarly, creative, and activist work;
• Promote their arc toward professional success and economic well-being; and
• Advocate for more paid, full-time, tenure-track positions for student adjuncts to advance toward.

+ This year, the CUNY Adjunct Incubator will be for CUNY Graduate Center students in years 6 and beyond who are also currently working as adjuncts at any CUNY campus. 

+ They will be paid $4,000 through financial aid to develop independent scholarship and/or public projects in the humanities or humanities-related social sciences.

+ They will participate in four cohort meetings to share public scholarship in process between development from September 2026 – May 2027. These interdisciplinary cohort meetings will be co-led and facilitated by public scholars Celina Su and Kendra Sullivan.

+ They will publish a short reflection on Distributaries in June 2027. 

DEADLINE TO APPLY:

Monday, June 22, 2026 by 11:59 pm.

WHAT:

For this cycle, we wish to prioritize community-facing and -building work, broadly construed. Project focus might include (but not limited to): public education (especially CUNY), public health, housing, labor, liberation movements.

Our rubric for evaluation is as follows:

1. Public engagement: Does this project demonstrate a deep awareness of the reciprocal methods, ethics, and goals of community-oriented practice? Does it consider the compensation of communities in which it engages, and provide a robust grasp of existing research and genealogies of its subject of study?
2. Urgency: Does this project address an emergent or pressing social (environmental, health, educational, housing, etc.) need in meaningful ways?
3. Creativity: Does the application think about an intellectual or practical problem through a previously under-examined perspective or with an innovative set of tools?
4. Feasibility: Does the project seem manageable, and are we the right organization to help the applicant fulfill their goals in a rich and nuanced way?
5. Legacy: Does this project build on the Graduate Center’s rich history of public scholarship, including community-based participatory action research, as championed by the Public Science Project, public history and community archiving, as championed by the American Social History Project, the CUNY Digital History Project, and the Mina Rees Library, and/or social, racial, and environmental justice, as championed by BRES, IRADAC, and the NYC Climate Justice Hub, and queer liberatory studies, as championed by CLAGS. 

In addition to covering costs associated with scholarly research, this grant can support travel related to professional and/or curriculum development, and research and development of a public-facing project such as: archival research, oral histories, digital/interpretative platforms, online or print publications, performances, and panels, conferences, and exhibitions, etc. For examples of past grant-funded projects, visit 2025 projects and others here. 

ELIGIBILITY:

CUNY Graduate Center students in years 6 and beyond who are also currently working as adjuncts at any CUNY campus. 

*Please note before applying, please contact the Office of Financial Aid at [email protected] to ensure that receiving this grant will not adversely impact your existing award package.

EXPECTATIONS:

• will participate in four cohort meetings throughout the year to share public scholarship in process between development from September 2026 – May 2027. 
• We request a blog post reflection about your project, research process and impact by June 2027.
• We invite recipients to think about sharing their work with wider publics and welcome proposals for public programming or online events related to your work.

APPLICATION:

Fill out the application form and upload as a single PDF file to the form (name your file as follows LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_CAI2026) with the following:

1. a one-page letter of interest (which should include a description of your research or public project, a timeline, and your methodological tool-kit, and a brief description of how this removes a barrier in your path to degree),
2. CV,
3. a brief, budgetary outline

*Please note: before applying, please contact the Office of Financial Aid at [email protected] to ensure that receiving this grant will not adversely impact your existing award package.

Questions? Please reach out to us [email protected] 

SELECTION PROCESS: 

Recipients will be decided by an interdisciplinary advisory committee. The 2026 CUNY Adjunct Incubator Advisory Committee will be composed of Celina Su, Kendra Sullivan, Mary N. Taylor,  and Ujju Aggarwal.

For any queries, reach out to [email protected] 

The CUNY Adjunct Incubator is co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities through generous grants from the Sylvia Klatzkin Steinig Fund and the Gittell Urban Studies Collective at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

About the Gittell Urban Studies Collective: The Gittell Urban Studies Collective engages communities, fellow scholars, and activists focused on issues related to cities, social justice, community participation and development, political engagement and social movements, and democratic governance, both domestically and abroad. Read morehere

About the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center: The Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center encourages collaborative, creative, and engaged work in the humanities and social sciences. While providing students, faculty, and community partners with grants, fellowships, and professional support, we also produce innovative projects and programs, digital and print publications, and infrastructure for public scholarship from a justice-forward framework at CUNY and across NYC.  Read morehere.