A Checklist for Historians?

I've been having an obsessive week. In my working hours, I have delightfully obsessed over an amazing report written in 1968 by Irving Brodsky on how JCCs were reacting to the urban crisis. I spent five days poring over each page. In my non-working hours, I could not tear myself away from my SimCity. I played for hours each evening, erecting skyscrapers and stocking cargo ships on a little grid illustrated within my iPad. The final rabbit hole that I fell down was a book I devoured in two days, Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (2009). 

In this book, Gawande argues that a well designed checklist can help trained experts reduce the potential for failure by highlighting some of the most easily missed steps in a complex procedure. This emphasis on the obvious or routine steps then frees more mental space for experts to consider subtlety, variance, or emergent factors in the given situation. I was familiar with many of the hospital/healthcare systems improvements that Gawande described because of my internship at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, where I observed firsthand how the implementation of checklists improved patient outcomes in hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities throughout Western Pennsylvania. From The Checklist Manifesto, however, I learned about the origins of checklists in aviation and how industries like construction and finance have adapted them throughout the years to improve outcomes, mitigate risk, and increase efficiency. 

All of that was interesting in itself, but the central question that kept me obsessively reading was: could a historian benefit from a checklist? And if so, how? Archival research is incredibly low-risk, for ourselves and others, and most of our work is done solo. We don't have people relying on us for their safety, nor do we often engage in collaborative endeavors that require leadership, team work, and communication. Yet, historical research is a complex, multi-step process that can be incredibly inefficient. 

One essential characteristic of modern life is that we all depend on systems--on assemblages of people or technologies or both--and among our most profound difficulties is making them work.

My system--which I have written about extensively--must surely have flaws and failures. I may not see them now, but what about when I start writing? Will I find that my notes are inadequate or inaccessible? In what ways? I've decided to spend the next week breaking down my system into all of its essential tasks and outcomes, to see if it will be possible to take Gawande's advice and create a checklist that increases my weekly reading input and writing output.

Reflections on Patriotism on the Occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Yesterday I attended a professional sporting event in a large arena. As is customary, everyone stood before the game for the national anthem. I got up from my seat but didn't sing along. I stopped singing the Star Spangled Banner a few years ago because I dislike the mindlessness of the tradition. We sing the anthem before sporting events... why? What does our affirmation of citizenship have anything to do with the game about to be played? I get why it's meaningful before an international match, but this was a group of men from Pittsburgh trying to beat a group of men from New York. 

In addition to not really understanding the custom, my feelings about America, democracy, and freedom have been tense in recent years. In the abstract, they're all great--I'm proud to be a U.S. citizen, I wholeheartedly believe in democratic elections and representation, and who doesn't love freedom? I do find it hard, though, to ignore the shortcomings of our government and our society, especially when we do not grant the same freedoms to all of our citizens equally. I struggle to proudly vocalize my support of the United States when I know how many double standards persist....

Anyways, I bring this all up because yesterday, at this professional sporting event, the singer of the national anthem did something different. For the middle verse of the Star Spangled Banner, he lowered his mic so that the only sound in the arena was the collective singing of the crowd. It surprised and powerfully affected me. The crowd carried the anthem, steadily and quietly. Without the magnification of the leader's voice, I felt enveloped rather than blasted. It seemed more thoughtful, more committed, and less like a spectacle. 

I confess that I wasn't moved enough to join in the singing for the last verse, but it did make me re-interrogate my abstention. Appropriately, this is the weekend when we, as a nation, have collectively decided to remember a man who dedicated his life to exposing the shortcomings of American citizenship, democracy, and freedom. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not just a radical advocate for racial equality, he also fought for economic quality and against American' overreach abroad (particularly the Vietnam War). Dr. King was deeply critical of the false promise of American citizenship and the "American Dream," and he ceaselessly worked to remedy the worst policies, programs, and practices that disenfranchised vulnerable populations. 

Reflecting on Dr. King's legacy today, I feel foolish to have taken my citizenship for granted--what a privilege. So many men and women have fought over the past 238 years to expand access to the protections of U.S. citizenship beyond white male landowners. In my effort to not be blind to the miscarriages of justice that occur regularly in the United States and to see the rampant hypocrisy in our promotion of democracy and freedom abroad, my vision of the meaning and importance of American citizenship became blurry. I'm still not interested in singing the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events, but I appreciate that I had this moment--especially this weekend--to reevaluate why and when to be critical and when to do the brutally hard work of upholding values like democracy and freedom. 

A Timeless Sentiment...

By its nature, my work requires an emotional investment which at times I am not ready to make. I am concerned that I feel so emotionally spent at the end of the day. It goes against my self-image of being all things to all men to realize that I have only so much to give. I want to save part of myself for my family and my personal interests. I feel bridled by my awareness that at times I am called upon to make a great investment and yet, when needed am reluctant to accept my mountain. I look to the day when I will strike a balance between my expectations and my abilities, and when my concerns as a Jewish Center worker will not all be paradoxical.

Constandino Biris, "The Concerns of a New Worker," (May, 1966). From the National Jewish Welfare Board collection at the Center for Jewish History. 

Why Grants are the Pits

Although getting a grant is a top 10 professional good feeling, the lead-up is really a drag. 

First of all, grants are really competitive. There are more research projects than magic pots of money, and so you are always a loser more often than you are a winner. You also compete against your closest colleagues and mentors. Even the most collegial group of scholars can get bent out of shape when one person appears to be getting a bigger slice of the grant pie. It's also exhausting to put so much effort into applications that you know do not have a good chance of getting funded. 

This competition makes writing grant proposals tedious. It's always important to tailor a proposal to the interests of the granting institution, but there's also a lot of pressure to make your application stand out in the crowd. There's a fine balance that you have to strike between familiar and innovative--you want to propose a project that a funding committee will understand, but that isn't something they have seen 100 times before. It has to appear fresh, but feasible. That's a tall order!

It's hard to stay calm through a process that feels like an exercise in futility, but the good news is that most every scholar hits the jackpot now and then. 

Grants: What materials are included in an application?

Grants differ widely in what materials they ask applicants to submit, but what they all have in common is that they are very particular. The best way to disqualify yourself for research funding is to not follow directions. I usually make a checklist in my task manager, Asana, that has a subtask for each requirement of the application. That way I can keep track of the materials I have finished writing, editing, or collecting and visualize what's left to get done. A checklist is also handy at the very end, right before submission, to double check that the application is complete. 

Here is a list of the most common materials that grant applications request:

1. Cover Letter: A grant cover letter differs little from one you would submit as part of a job application. It's an opportunity to highlight the most relevant parts of your CV and argue why your research should be funded. The best cover letters are concise, persuasive, and demonstrate confidence in your ability to accomplish the project goals.  

2. Curriculum Vitae (CV): The CV is a resume on steroids. It includes all of the academic attainments accumulated over the course of a career, including degrees, publications, honors and awards, conference presentations, courses taught, and professional affiliations. I've seen some senior scholars whose CVs are over 20 pages. Mine is three pages, but it'll get there...

3. Proposal: This document explains a) your research project, b) what you want to do with the grant money, and c) who will benefit from the project and why? Usually there is a page limit, so writing a grant proposal is a way to practice concision. 

4. Bibliography: Grant applications sometimes ask for you to include a bibliography of other work related your research. A bibliography demonstrates to the selection committee that your work is engaged with current arguments or is rooted in the classic, foundational texts on the topic. Conversely, if you are applying for a grant slightly outside your field and the selection committee may not necessarily be familiar with the topic, it can help them contextualize your project.

5. Recommendations: It is rare that a grant application does not ask for at least one letter of recommendation from a colleague, advisor, or dissertation committee. Ostensibly these individuals know your work better than anyone and can best describe the status of the project and its relevance to a particular aspect of historical scholarship. The general convention is that the letters of recommendation are submitted directly by the writers to the granting institution and are not seen by the applicant. It's very important to ask trusted advisors to write on your behalf, and to make sure that they are happy with your progress!

Has anyone seen other materials requested in a grant application?