Visiting Scholars, three women sitting together

Hastings Center News

Hastings Center Resumes Visiting Scholars Program

The Hastings Center’s longstanding visiting scholars program, which was halted during the Covid-19 pandemic, is back. Applications for stays are now open.

The program enables scholars from institutions around the world to make progress on their own writing and editing projects at The Hastings Center during several weeks and stay on-site in a shared apartment. A new webpage, Stays at The Hastings Center, describes the opportunity and the application process for stays, which are short term and self-supervised. A related webpage, Programs for Students and Visiting Scholars, includes this and other opportunities.

Senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger, who directs the visiting scholars program, describes how it has been retooled. “During the pandemic, our scholars and other staff discussed how we could improve this program to ensure good matches between the needs of visiting scholars and the strengths of this institution,” she said. “We concluded that visitors with well-developed writing or editing projects underway got the most out of the experience we offer by gaining focused time for work and feedback from presentations and discussions with research community.”

The Hastings Center tested this new approach with several visiting scholars who had been accepted to the program and whose planned stays were postponed due to the pandemic. “We fine-tuned the program to reflect our hybrid work model and its impact on our availability to visitors,” she said. “We found that visitors on sabbatical or other research leave were well-suited to what we offer. They are looking for time to work on their own writing or editing, and they have clear plans for how they will use this time.”

Stays are available from April through mid-November. Potential visiting scholars are strongly encouraged to make their initial inquiry 6-12 months in advance of their proposed stay.

To learn more about this opportunity, including accommodations and costs, see the FAQs on the Stays webpage. Email inquiries and other questions should be sent to programs@thehastingscenter.org