CHICAGO — In 1981, the MacArthur Foundation began awarding annual fellowships. These have consisted of monetary awards of $800,000 (an increase this year, bumped up from a decade ago and paid out in annual installments of $160,000 over five years) to do with whatever the awardees want.
Most people, in the press and elsewhere, have dubbed these “genius grants,” a suitably catchy name. Many, perhaps those gripped by jealousy, have referred to the awardees as “having won the lottery,” a wildly incorrect comparison.
These people, which this year number 25, are not merely lucky. They have worked very hard. They cannot apply for the fellowships, and no one knows if they are being considered. As the foundation’s website explains, “nominees are suggested by a constantly changing pool of invited external nominators chosen from as broad a range of fields and areas of interest as possible.”
