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Grants and Residencies for Fellows

Grants are available to Fellows of The Academy for Teachers. Current grants include The Don Quixote and Bread Loaf Fellowships.

Don Quixote Fellowship

When teachers are inspired, students benefit. The Don Quixote Fellowships supports idealistic, romantic, creative, impractical, adventurous projects born of teachers’ passions. Awards up to $5,000 are granted.

Projects can, but need not, be related to classroom practice: a science teacher might study Inuit poetry in Alaska or a pre-K teacher might carve a fifteen-foot marble sculpture. We are looking for applicants who use ingenuity in planning an original experience.

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Academy Fellow Sarah Murphy in Scotland.

2025 Don Quixote Fellows

In 2025, the Academy is proud to provide five fellowships to teachers, thanks to a partnership with Incite Institute at Columbia University. These Don Quixote Incite Fellows ∆ have exciting work to do, and we are pleased to be working with them and the Incite Institute.

Incite is an interdisciplinary institute at Columbia University. They produce knowledge for public action. They do so by joining with people and organizations within and outside the university to rethink our understanding of what knowledge is, how it’s created, and how it can be used.

Stephen Kos ∆
The Computer School, teaching 9 years, From Desert to Rainforest

Stephen will explore Peru's diverse biomes, from the coastal desert to the rainforest, to document ecosystem diversity and develop science curricula for his special education students.

Alexis Neider
The Neighborhood School, teaching 20 years, Making and Baking

Alexis will get her hands dirty, deep in vats of slip and blocks of clay in order to learn what clay can do.

Gijon Polite
Humanities Preparatory Academy, teaching 19 years, Climate Change Through the Eyes of the Guna People

Gijon will visit the indigenous people of the Guna Yala islands to document their lives and understand climate change through their eyes.

Julia Shube
Harvest Collegiate High School, teaching 10 years, Stitching Stories

Julia will travel to Iceland to understand the process of sweater making–from sheep to product–and meet the people behind it.

Mary Whittemore ∆
Granby Memorial High School, teaching 28 years, Writing Like a Writer

As part of a research project, Mary will travel to Pensacola, Florida to interview activists organizing around book bans, LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice, and abortion.

Fellows

Artist Residency for Teachers

The Academy for Teachers understands how hard it is for teachers who are also working artists to find the space and time to be creative. We are thrilled, therefore, that Foundation House has partnered with us and will host eight teachers for an artist residency of ten days this summer. Residents will be provided housing, three meals a day, and the ability to pursue their art in a supportive, safe, and undisturbed environment.

Learn more & Apply

2024 Foundation House ArtistS-In-Residence

Portion of a large mural by Nicky Enright
Nicky Enright
Multimedia artist, Riverdale Country School

Nicky plans to finish a book proposal about art and education, and work on two series of large drawings. One series, called “FLAGments,” is about borders; the other, called “FRACKments,” concerns climate change.

photo of melissa in front of a vine covered background
melissa christine goodrum
Poet, Brooklyn Technical High School

melissa will work on a collection of dramatic monologue poems, which give a voice to the ‘Black Ghosts’ of America. The project was inspired by research melissa did into her maternal grandfather, Charlie Dixon, a banjo player in Fletcher Henderson’s band, with connections to Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Benny Goodman, and Cora LaRedd.

photo of Niki standing next to her towering yellow sculpture
Niki Lederer
Sculptor, Art and Design High Schoo

Niki will create pleated fans, flags, and banners from the multicolored, discarded umbrellas she collects from the street, bringing attention to these cast-off, single-use materials, while suggesting a humorous approach to the futility of mass consumption.

Black and white illustration by Elena Megalos
Elena Megalos
Illustrator/animator, The Packer Collegiate Institute

At Foundation House, Elena will develop a graphic memoir about her relationship to her mother and her mother’s unrealized creative life. The book will adopt the shell-and-pearl structure of the Arabian Nights: a series of late-night conversations with Shahrazad and repeated efforts to “get right” Elena’s mother’s own untold story.

James Manzano next to two of their artworks
James Manzano
Textile artist, Community Roots Charter School

James will continue a long-term project that investigates the history of Filipinx fiber art. At Foundation House, they will reimagine traditional European lace-making techniques through the lens of Filipinx symbols, including those from Batek (Ilocano & Cordillera tattoo) traditions. This is an imagining of reverse colonization—what if Filipinx motifs made their way into European art, rather than the reverse?

Photo of Niki Singh on a bench
Niki Singh
Writer, Bank Street School for Children

Niki will continue working on a novel about a strong, charismatic woman, based on her mother, who is bipolar and lives in a society that does not understand mental illness.

Bread Loaf School of English Scholarship

The Academy for Teachers is modeled on The Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, where passionate students, most of them teachers, take inspiring classes in a beautiful mountain setting. Scholarships, offered jointly by the Academy and Bread Loaf, will be awarded to Fellows of the Academy for Teachers who share a passion for literature, a love of creativity, and a devotion to teaching. We hope that six weeks among kindred spirits—reading, discussing, writing, playing—will send them into the next school year rejuvenated.

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A green and yellow building at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English.
Scholars

Help us keep great teachers in the classroom

Teachers, our most valuable resource, are struggling. Overwhelmed and under-supported, too many teachers leave the profession too soon. The Academy’s enriching experiences and supportive community have been proven to improve those odds.

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