The Louisville Institute is a Lilly Endowment-funded ($8 m in 2014) program based at Louisville Seminary supporting those who lead and study American religious institutions. The fundamental mission of the Louisville Institute is to enrich the religious life of American Christians and to encourage the revitalization of their institutions, by bringing together those who lead religious institutions with those who study them, so that the work of each might inform and strengthen the other.
The Louisville Institute seeks to fulfill its mission to bring together religious leaders and academics through three separate but related programs: 1) grantmaking, 2) fellowships in theological education, and 3) collaborative inquiry. Dean Gail Greenwell of Christ Church Cathedral was the 2008 recipient of the Pastoral Leadership Award.
Grants
The grantmaking program seeks to support both research and inquiry by scholar/pastors and scholar/educators that strengthen the religious life of North American Christians and their institutions while simultaneously advancing American religious and theological scholarship. The Louisville Institute currently offers four grant programs:
- Pastoral Study Project
- Project Grant for Researchers
- Sabbatical Grant for Researchers
- First Book Grant for Minority Scholars
Fellowships
The Louisville Institute offers three fellowships in theological education as part of its Vocation of the Theological Educator Initiative:
- Doctoral Fellowships support a two-year, nonresidential cohort of Ph.D./Th.D. students who are considering theological education as their vocation.
- Dissertation Fellowships support the final year of Ph.D. or Th.D. dissertation writing for students engaged in research pertaining to North American Christianity. As part of the VTE Initiative, this program supports but is not limited to scholars who intend a career in theological education.
- Postdoctoral Fellowships provide promising recent graduates a two-year teaching internship in a theological school.
Collaborative Inquiry
The Collaborative Inquiry program supports teams of four to six pastors and professors who propose projects to strengthen the life of North American Christian congregations. Each team will spend three years exploring together a question of vital importance to the church. For this round of funding, we are particularly interested in projects that investigate some aspect of the economy, health care, or peacemaking. All funded projects should involve substantial opportunity for learning that will benefit the church by addressing a living question the church faces in each of these areas.
