Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry Faculty Fellowships


What life-changing experiences could you create for students with enough time and resources? The Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry (VBC) wants to know! The Ball State Honors College, home of the VBC, invites proposals from dedicated faculty interested in developing large-scale, student-driven projects that transcend the limits of a single classroom or even a single semester.

What is the Virginia Ball Center?

The Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry (VBC) was established in 1999 to promote bold interdisciplinary work that involves the creation of a creative project shared with the public. Virginia Ball Center Faculty Fellows and their student cohorts have produced Emmy-winning films, large-scale theatrical productions, award-winning landscape architecture installations, and projects receiving commendation from the American Association for State and Local History. VBC Fellows and students dedicate themselves to engaging in extended, interdisciplinary projects that are sizeable in scale and ambition. Each experience is curated so that a cohort of undergraduate students can:

  • Explore the connections among the arts, humanities, science, and technology.
  • Engage in interdisciplinary inquiry that extends over the course of a calendar year.
  • Create a product that illustrates collaborative research and interdisciplinary study.
  • Present that product to the community in an open forum.

What are we looking for?

We want your most innovative, ambitious and unique ideas! We want to hear about your dream project ideas! Each VBC seminar consists of three components:

  • Seminars: Interdisciplinary, discussion-based courses exploring the proposed project’s topics of inquiry.

  • Signature experiences: a distinct experience that engages deeply with the proposed project’s topic. Signature experiences may include off-campus residencies, large-scale workshops, intensive consultations and mentorship by professionals, curated travel experiences, among others.
  • Product and showcase: a tangible outcome created from the project’s investigations and presented to the community in an open forum.

Given the potential scope of these experiences, the VBC will entertain a variety of possible project structures, designed in consultation with the Ball State Honors College and the Candidate’s home department.

I’m interested! How do I learn more?

Email us at vbc@bsu.edu or call at 765-285-0117.

More information on past VBC projects may be found here.