Meghan Sullivan, professor of philosophy and director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS) at the University of Notre Dame, has received a $2.97 million grant to lead a project developing courses on human flourishing.

The grant, from the John Templeton Foundation, will “support faculty seeking to translate research on human flourishing into ‘signature courses’—pedagogically innovative, large-scale courses that have an outsize impact on a university curriculum and the broader public discussion,” according to Notre Dame:

The three-year grant will provide funding for 15 faculty members from Notre Dame and national or international institutions to join the NDIAS as Signature Course Fellows, where they will spend a semester or summer in residence developing signature courses on topics connected to human flourishing…

After their residency, fellows will launch their course at their home institution and commit to teaching it for at least three semesters. Fellows will convene at the conclusion of the grant for a summative conference, providing them the opportunity to demonstrate course content and share lessons learned.

Semester-long fellows will receive a $50,000 stipend during their semester of residency, and summer-based fellows will receive a $15,000 stipend during their four weeks of residency. All fellows will be given subsidized housing, design funds to help build their courses, a sub-grant to their home university to facilitate the course launch and support from student research assistants.

Professor Sullivan has long been involved in developing courses that focus on the relationship between philosophy and living well (see this previous post), including a course, “God and the Good Life,” which is very popular at Notre Dame, and which formed the basis of The Good Life Method: Reasoning Through the Big Questions of Happiness, Faith, and Meaning, co-authored with her colleague Paul Blaschko.

They discuss the course here:

You can learn more about the grant here.

(via Kristian Olsen)