To Ellen Berry, one of the most important places at the University is one that stands for the building of an intellectual community.

Berry identifies that place as the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society, which allows faculty to take a break from teaching to work on their personal research projects.

“You would think that at an university we would have all kinds of opportunities to talk to one another about our work, but in fact we don’t,” Berry said. “This is the only place on campus, that I know, that is dedicated to kind of sponsoring peoples’ research projects, giving them a chance to talk to the community about their research projects and sponsoring outside speakers and educating people about that before they come.”

Every year, at least four faculty members are awarded fellowships that allow them to use a semester as a means to do research for their personal work, said Berry, director of ICS and previous faculty fellow of two years.

Berry enjoyed her own opportunity to do research.

“It was so nice to have the time to work on the project and it was really special to present it to my peers,” Berry said. “It’s one thing to go to a conference and kind of report your research to total strangers, but it’s another thing to have all of the people in your own community to hear your work.”

ICS also hosts a lecture series that goes on throughout the year, and it sponsors workshops, symposia and conferences, Berry said.

Kim Coates, associate professor of English and recent faculty fellow, said ICS benefits both faculty and students.

“ICS makes an enormous contribution to the intellectual culture on this campus. Not only do the ICS Faculty Fellows give public lectures, but the Institute also sponsors other speakers throughout the academic year,” Coates said. “These lectures provide intellectual stimulation to both faculty and students alike.”

Ann Weedon, graduate assistant for ICS, said she enjoys being able to work with the faculty and hear their work.

“This institute is a really interesting opportunity to work with faculty members that are doing their own individual research, so it’s kind of exciting to get to hear their work,” Weedon said.

There were a total of five faculty fellows this past year, and Coates was one of them, Berry said.

Coates said she gave a public lecture in March entitled “Dancing with Freud: Female Sexuality, Modernist Women and the Intoxication of Movement.”

“I am in the very early stages of a book project, so I spent much of my semester on fellowship doing preliminary research and reading,writing for the project,” Coates said. “I was able to devote my undivided attention to this work, which simply isn’t possible when I’m teaching three classes and have 80 to 90 students, plus committee responsibilities in my department and University-wide.”

Coates said there is little to no time for faculty downtime.

“I think the ICS Fellowship is of special importance to those in the Humanities and Social Sciences on this campus because, other than Faculty Improvement Leaves, which only come around every 7 years, there are few opportunities for faculty in these areas to get release time,” Coates said.

ICS was founded in 1996 by then University president, Olscamp, Berry said.

“He created this endowment where we could fund faculty to have a semester off to work on their research projects and that would also raise money every year to bring in speakers,” Berry said. “It was designed to be useful to those of us who would like to get time off but don’t have access to the kind of money that other disciplines do. So it was his vision and generosity that started the whole thing and yeah, it’s been going on ever since.”

ICS is funded by the Arts and Sciences department, while also having a small endowment that generates interest every year to fund outside speakers and events, she said.

Berry has been director for two years now and said she is there to serve the interest of the faculty.

“I feel like I am here to serve the interest of the faculty because we get so caught up in teaching, not that that isn’t important, but if we get too far away from our own work we’re not as good at teaching either,” Berry said. “It’s a place to generate ideas and it’s a place to help people develop their projects and just be a resource for intellectual work.”