MacArthur Foundation in the context of "Derek Walcott"

Ronald Grigor Suny (born September 25, 1940) is an American Armenian historian and political scientist. He is the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Michigan and Emeritus Professor of history and political science at the University of Chicago. Suny served as director of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies from 2009 to 2012; the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History at the University of Michigan from 2005 to 2015; and the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History from 2015 to 2022.

Suny was the first holder of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan, after beginning his career as an assistant professor at Oberlin College. He served as chairman of the Society for Armenian Studies (SAS) in 1981 and 1984. He was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) in 2005 and given the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) Distinguished Contributions to Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Award in 2013. He has received the National Endowment for the Humanities Grant (1980–1981), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1983–1984), and a Research and Writing Grant, Program on Global Security and Sustainability, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (1998–1999), and was twice a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (2001–2002, 2005–2006). He was a 2013 Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals working in any field who have shown "extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction" and are citizens or residents of the United States.

According to the foundation's website, "the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishments but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential", but it also says such potential is "based on a track record of significant accomplishments". The amount of the prize is $800,000 paid over five years in quarterly installments. Previously, it was $625,000. This figure was increased from $500,000 in 2013 upon the release of a review of the MacArthur Fellows Program. The award has been called "one of the most significant awards that is truly 'no strings attached'".