Society of Senior Ford Fellows

In 2022, the Society of Senior Ford Fellows (SSFF) entered its second full year of incorporation following official incorporation in spring of 2020. In 2022, the SSFF focused program services on members services including further development of a web-based, public facing membership directory and growth of the membership base and grant writing to support membership and programming. SSFF income in 2022 was based on a membership campaign and associated member donations and on a general grant received from the Ford Foundation. The SSFF began with 79 members in January and had 299 members by the end of the calendar year. A general support grant from Ford Foundation was submitted in the summer of 2022 and funded for a period of 5 years. Other member services offered included support for the submission of a collaborative set of proposals to the New Pluralists grant competition. SSFF ran a member-wide call for proposals using our web infrastructure and listserv. A SSFF board subcommittee led by our Vice President, reviewed and chose a set of four themed proposals on Healing Through Ancestral Frameworks, held virtual sessions with the principals involved to develop networks, helped edit and develop an integrated budget and submitted the cohesive package in the summer of 2022. While the effort was not funded, the networking services offered to both the chosen and the runner up proposals has established collaborations that did not exist previously.Our annual professional development conference was held virtually in October of 2022. The 2022 conference provided scholarly presentations with a keynote address by Dr. Adriana Briscoe as well as professional development sessions addressing key aspects of the academic life cycle. Virtual conferences are free and in 2022 were not limited to SSFF members. We also held a special listening session in the fall for members to discuss ways forward given the announcement that the Ford Foundation would no longer fund fellowships. This discussion was an important community and membership building event. Plans were made for a board retreat and in-person conference to be held in 2023. In 2022, the SSFF also continued to build infrastructure to prepare for grant applications in 2022. The infrastructure developed in 2022 included expansion of the SSFF web-presence and member-to-member communication tools. The directory has been used by academic institutions and the press to identify scholars for panels and articles. It is also used by members and students to identify potential mentors. The SSFF additionally contracted services to develop the website further.