Support the Center
The extent and quality of the programming and activities sponsored by the Summersell Center for the Study of the South depends in large measure on our available funds. To make a contribution to the general fund of the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, please contact Center Director John Giggie at jmgiggie@ua.edu or 205.348.1859.
The Summersell Center for the Study of the South also has a number of specific development opportunities, where endowments or significant targeted donations can enable us to increase our national visibility and expand the range of scholarship and events we are able to produce and recognize. Naming opportunities are possible in conjunction with such gifts. For more information about any of the opportunities described below, please contact Center Director John Giggie at jmgiggie@ua.edu or 205.348.1859.
Annual Lecture Series
The Summersell Center would like to begin sponsoring an annual lecture series, in which several leading scholars would be brought to campus to speak over the course of the academic year on a defined topic or theme. Depending on the topic and the willingness of the individual speakers, lectures might be later worked up into formal essays for publication.
Postdoctoral Fellowships
Given the array of resources in southern history available at the University of Alabama and its environs, postdoctoral fellowships would appeal to recently minted Ph.D. students from a variety of disciplines across the country and around the world. Funding for one or more fellowships would enable fellows to live in Tuscaloosa and teach at the university while developing their dissertations into books, exposing both the university and wider community to new research while also building the prestige and name recognition of the University of Alabama and the Summersell Center.
Research Fellowships
In the fall of 2011, the Summersell Center will begin offering short-term research fellowships to scholars from outside the Tuscaloosa area to come and take advantage of the collections here on campus. Endowment of these fellowships would allow us to continue them indefinitely and possibly to expand the number of them we can offer, while freeing up resources for other projects.
Deep South Book Prize
Beginning in 2012 and continuing on a biannual basis, the Summersell Center will award a monetary prize for the best book written in the previous two years on the history or culture of the Deep South. Endowment of the book prize will provide for funding the award in perpetuity as well as for funds to bring the winner to campus for the purpose of receiving the award and giving a public lecture.