CAS Fellows for AY2025-26

We are in the process of replacing the application website. If you plan to apply for a CAS Fellow appointment for AY2025-26, please email cas@cas.illinois.edu with the subject line: CAS Fellow application

Application due: Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Letters of Support due: Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Faculty must be nominated by their EO(s) in order to apply for a CAS Fellow appointment. Administrative officers in campus units are invited to nominate up to two promising untenured Assistant Professors from their units.

CAS Fellows are untenured University of Illinois faculty members with the rank of assistant professor. With the Professors and Associates, they form the intellectual core of the Center for Advanced Study community. Fellows are invited to participate in CAS events, and are given opportunities to present their work to the CAS community.

These appointments provide one semester of release time to pursue an individual scholarly or creative project. Appointments must be taken during the academic year for which they are awarded. Candidates who wish to defer their appointments must reapply in a subsequent competition.

Successful candidates are asked to prepare an early description of their projects for publicity purposes as well as a short report on their achievements at the end of their appointments.

The home department receives a grant of $15K from CAS. In the case of a dual percentage appointment, these funds will be distributed proportionately in accordance with the department that holds the course offerings.

CAS Release-Time appointments are intended to provide a release from classroom teaching, not from service, graduate mentoring, and continued engagement in the shared governance of the home unit and of campus more broadly. However, it is hoped that departments will exercise some flexibility about service obligations for fellowship recipients — beyond dissertation, thesis, and other necessary forms of graduate advising — thus maximizing the scholar's ability to make excellent progress on his/her research project during the semester of teaching release.

Selection Criteria

Selection criteria include your record of accomplishment in areas related to your proposal, significance of the proposed project, and the quality of your plans to carry it out. Referee evaluations are especially important.

The committee will consider applications from tenure-track assistant professors from the second year onwards. Applicants are compared within and across disciplinary and professional areas. You are not eligible if you held an appointment as a CAS Fellow during or since the 2020-21 academic year. Applicants with comparable qualifications who have not yet held an appointment will receive preference in the selection process.