Apply now for the 2024 Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowship

The NC State University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) and the Culture & Animals Foundation (CAF) are excited to offer the annual Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowship. 

Established in 2019 through the generosity of the CAF in memory of co-founder Tom Regan to promote scholarly research in animal rights, the fellowship supports the use of the SCRC’s Animal Rights Archive—the largest scholarly archive of animal rights collections in the country. In addition to the fellowship, the CAF offers annual grants to scholars and artists working on these issues, an annual lecture, and the Nancy Regan Arts Prize.

Regan Fellows have come from a range of disciplines including philosophy, history of science, and anthrozoology. Read about the four previous Fellows here.

In 2024, the Libraries and the CAF will award one fellowship providing a $5,000 stipend to a qualified applicant for research completed in residence at the SCRC for a term of no less than four weeks to begin on or after July 1 of this year. Application details may be found below. The application deadline is April 30. Read application requirements and apply here.

Since the Regan Fellowship was launched, the Libraries has acquired new materials, including an extensive collection of Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) Records. Furthermore, through a grant from CLIR, new digital assets from the ASPCA are also available to researchers. 

The SCRC builds collections of rare and unique materials to support the research and teaching needs of the university, emphasizing established and emerging areas at the university and corresponding to strengths within the Libraries’ overall collection. These rich collections serve as a foundation for generations of scholarship in animal protection, impacting and supporting scholars from across the nation.

"The Culture & Animals Foundation is delighted to partner with the Animal Rights Archive at the NC State University Libraries to offer the Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowships,” says Martin Rowe, CAF’s Executive Director. “The archive offers an unparalleled opportunity for scholars to explore many facets of Tom's work and the animal advocacy movement through the decades; the Fellowships can help make that happen."

Fellowship requirements

• Applicants must submit via email to gathayer@ncsu.edu a curriculum vitae; a cover page including name, address, phone, email, institutional affiliation, current position/title, a project outline and rationale for use of the collections; the names of three appropriate references; and a detailed budget. Eligible expenses include lodging, meals, duplication/digitization expenses, travel (air, train, or bus ticket fees; car rental; mileage using a personal vehicle); and parking fees. The fellowship does not provide housing or parking. 
• Graduate and undergraduate students should also submit a letter of recommendation from a faculty advisor or thesis director on the significance of the research topic and the abilities of the candidate. Other applicants (current faculty) are urged to include a letter of recommendation, but it is not required. 
• At the end of the research fellowship, awardees are expected to submit a final report on their research and will be asked to discuss their work by the Culture & Animals Foundation online during their stay or in the future. Awardees should also submit copies of publications that result from their research to both SCRC and to CAF.
• Visas cannot be issued for this type of fellowship.

Applications are reviewed and awards made by the Libraries’ Tom Regan Visiting Research Fellowship Committee.

Fellowship deadlines
Applications are due by April 30. Awardees will be notified by June 1 for support to begin on July 1 and to be completed by October 15 of the same year.

For more information and to submit applications, please contact:

Gwynn Thayer, Chief Curator and Associate Head, Special Collections
NC State University Libraries
Campus Box 7111
Raleigh, NC 27695-7111
gathayer@ncsu.edu 
(919) 513-3315

About Tom Regan
An internationally recognized scholar, inspiring teacher, and prolific author, Tom Regan joined the NC State philosophy faculty in 1967, eventually serving as head of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. His 1983 book, The Case for Animal Rights, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and remains a definitive work. Regan’s “War on Vivisection” speech, given at a 1988 rally in Los Angeles, is considered one of the most important animal rights speeches ever delivered, and the Utne Reader named him one of their “fifty visionaries changing the world.”

While on faculty at NC State, Regan also spent time as a visiting scholar at the University of Calgary, Brooklyn College, and Eastern Michigan University, and he received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Humanities Center. After more than 34 years of distinguished service at NC State, he retired in January 2002 to direct the Culture & Animals Foundation, which he and his wife Nancy established in 1985 to expand our understanding and appreciation of other animals and improve the ways in which they are treated.