This July the UNH Center for the Humanities will host two week-long summer institutes for K–12 educators made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more about the program here.
If you know teachers (or other educators, broadly defined) who might be interested, send them our way to learn new stories of a dynamic colonial history in New England! Applications are due by March 3, 2023.
The FOCWG invites applications for participation in the inaugural cohort of the FOCWG Mellon Mentors program. The FOCWG Mellon Mentors Program aims to partner early-career BIPOC faculty with trained senior mentors to create enduring professional relationships that will provide guidance, resources, and support to early career scholars as they cement their foothold in academia. The goal of the FOCWG Mellon Mentors Program is the creation of mentoring cohorts that offer multiple models of mentoring and expands the network of support for program participants.
Applications are due July 31, 2021. See the full call for applications for more details.
Applications are now open for the 2021 NEHC seed grants. These competitive seed grants are for research initiatives in the humanities that seek to capitalize on the collaborative network and potential of the consortium. Applications seeking to sustain, and build on, previously funded NEHC initiatives that demonstrated success are also welcome. Awards of up to $5,000 will be made. (For projects whose total budgets exceed $5,000 applicants must list additional committed funding sources and amounts.) Priority will be given to applications demonstrating concrete plans for consortium membership involvement. Such involvement can take different forms, but will typically involve, e.g. direct collaboration between two or more member institutions and/or active solicitation of faculty, staff, or students exclusively from member institutions. Applications are welcome from individuals or teams, but the PI must be on the faculty of a NEHC member institution.
Applications are due September 15, 2021, and must be submitted to your home humanities institute or center. See the request for proposals for full details and submission guidelines.
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC), and the University of Connecticut, the Faculty of Color Working Group (FOCWG) invites applications for a virtual symposium hosted by Tufts University scheduled for Wednesday May 26 – Friday May 28, 2021 themed “Politics, Pedagogy, and the Public Humanities.” This community and support-building event for FOC, continues the enthusiasm generated during the first regional FOCWG gathering, on May 10, 2019. The symposium includes a keynote by Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (Princeton), workshops by Dr. Noliwe Rooks (Cornell), Dr. Gabrielle Foreman (Penn State), Dr. Kyla Wazana Tompkins (Pomona), and Dr. Nicole Aljoe (Northeastern), social hours, and opportunities for one-on-one meetings with publishers.
Please note that space will be limited to ensure a high level of interaction among all participants, and the application deadline has been extended to April 23, 2021. Please see the full call for applications for details.
With the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Connecticut, UCHI, together with the Faculty of Color Working Group of the New England Humanities Consortium, is pleased to accept applications for the UCHI/FOCWG Faculty Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. The fellowship is intended for full-time UConn faculty members from historically disadvantaged minority groups and/or those whose projects specifically confront institutional blocks for BIPOC faculty.
Criteria for successful applicants include, but are not limited to: quality of research proposal; strength of reference letters; and articulation within the proposal of how this project can contribute to a larger support network for faculty of color in the region and/or to understanding and addressing impediments to success for BIPOC faculty in higher education.
Applications for the UCHI/FOCWG Fellowship are due on February 1st and should be submitted through UCHI’s regular fellowship application portal on Interfolio. All submission requirements are identical to regular UCHI Humanities fellowships; and applicants will be assessed by the same interdisciplinary review panel of outside academics. When applying, we ask that you indicate on the application form that you would like to be considered for the UCHI/FOCWG Fellowship. Indicating that you would like to be considered for the UCHI/FOCWG Fellowship does not preclude you from being offered a UCHI Fellowship—indeed, any application for the UCHI/FOCWG fellowship is considered as an application for a standard UCHI fellowship.
UCHI/FOCWG Fellows are full members of the UCHI fellowship class and have all the same benefits and responsibilities. See here for fellowship application materials and further information on the fellowship program.
The New England Humanities Consortium opposes the proposed cuts to humanities and arts departments at the University of Vermont. To express and explain our strong condemnation of these budget proposals, we have written the below open letter to Dr. Suresh Garimella, President of the University of Vermont.
Dr. Suresh Garimella
President
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405
December 15, 2020
I am writing, on behalf of the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC), of which UVM is a founding member, to protest, in the strongest possible terms, the proposed elimination of and consolidation of several humanities and arts departments at the University of Vermont.
Former President Obama recently noted that the nation is in the midst of an “epistemic crisis”—even as we face a devastating pandemic and unprecedented challenges to our electoral system. We understand that all institutions of higher education face terrible decisions because of the latter two crises.
But we also know that in order to solve the crisis of knowledge and truth eating away at the foundations of our democracy, our students—and the public at large—need the lessons we learn from the study of religion, languages, arts, classics and historical preservation. We can’t understand where we come from, what we value, and how we live while ignoring historic foundations, thinkers like Lao Tzu and Plato and knowledge about the politics and wisdom of religious experience. The state of Vermont—indeed the nation—cannot lose current and future voices who reflect these global lessons and the contributions they will make to a more inclusive and diverse workforce. Without them, we are spiritually, intellectually and civically worse off.
As noted, the University of Vermont has been a regional leader in the humanities and a founding member of the NEHC, an active consortium of public and private institutions throughout the region funding humanities research, engaging in public outreach and implementing a Mellon-funded Faculty of Color Working Group. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the University of Vermont Humanities Center and an undiminished and robust slate of humanities departments at the university.
Therefore, we respectfully implore the University of Vermont to reconsider these proposals.
Sincerely,
Michael P. Lynch
Director, New England Humanities Consortium
Director, University of Connecticut Humanities Institute
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, University of Connecticut
Darryl Harper
Director, Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Amherst College
Amanda Anderson
Director, Cogut Institute for the Humanities, Brown University
Kerill O’Neill
Director, Center for the Arts and Humanities, Colby College
Rebecca Biron
Director, The Leslie Center for the Humanities, Dartmouth College
Febe Armanios & Marion Wells
Co-Directors, Axinn Center for the Humanites at Middlebury College, Middlebury College
Lori Lefkovitz
Director, Northeastern University Humanities Center, Northeastern University
Alexandra Keller
Director, Kahn Liberal Arts Institute, Smith College
Kamran Rastegar
Director, Center for the Humanities at Tufts, Tufts University
Stephen Trzaskoma
Director, University of New Hampshire Center for the Humanities, University of New Hampshire
Evelyn Sterne
Director, University of Rhode Island Center for the Humanities, University of Rhode Island
Luis Vivanco
Director, The University of Vermont Humanities Center, University of Vermont
Eve Zimmerman
Director, Wellesley’s Newhouse Center for the Humanities, Wellesley College
Domingo Ledezma & Patrick Johnson
Co-Directors, Wheaton Institute for Interdisciplinary Humanities, Wheaton College
The UVM Humanities Center decries, in the strongest possible terms, the proposal to eliminate humanities departments and programs in the College of Arts and Sciences. This proposal does not reflect a “comprehensive commitment to a liberal arts education” (UVM Vision statement), and it undermines the value of the Humanities for our students, faculty, state, and status as Vermont’s flagship land grant university.
As Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill—architect of the land-grant university system— once expressed, humanities are not marginal to the land grant university but lie at its very heart: “The fundamental idea was to offer an opportunity in every state for a liberal and larger education to larger numbers, not merely those destined to enter the sedentary professions, but to those needing higher instruction for the world’s business, for the industrial pursuits and professions of life.” For Morrill, the purpose of the university is not merely technical education; rather it is to create better citizens and strengthen the nation by enriching the human experience.
Through their teaching, research, and public engagement, the faculty of three humanities programs targeted for elimination—Religion, Classics, and Historic Preservation—as well as majors in various foreign languages targeted for elimination, have demonstrated that the Humanities help all students from across the University to:
The proposal to eliminate these programs and majors based on an arbitrary measure like the number of majors is short-sighted and ignores the importance of these programs for the fulfilment of general education requirements for all students from across the university. Given that this proposal is patently about opening the door to cutting faculty positions, it egregiously ignores the contributions faculty in these programs make to Vermont through their public humanities work, consulting, and leadership in areas such as cultural heritage management, secondary education, teacher training, and humanities and arts programming throughout the state. UVM’s latest attempt to “engage” with Vermont would do well to recognize Humanities faculty are already deeply engaged in Vermont’s communities through a multitude of humanistic and artistic pursuits. Especially galling is the assault it represents on the accomplishments, productivity, and stature of the faculty who teach in these programs, whose contributions to UVM’s national and international reputation are substantial. We have been proud in the Humanities Center to provide direct support and awards to faculty in each of these programs.
Budgets are not apolitical, they are values statements. It is clear from the proposed budgetary cuts that the humanities are not valued at UVM. This is in spite of their inherent merit to our land grant institution, high enrollment courses that serve university mission, and excellent faculty. We question why we cannot invest university resources in academic programs and not bloated administrator salaries, or reform a budget model that systematically produces regular structural deficits to the academic unit that serves the greatest number and variety of students.
Sincerely,
Luis Vivanco, Director
Ilyse Morgenstein-Fuerst, Associate Director
In 2020 we celebrate two monumental events in American history: the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote, and the 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment that at least nominally enfranchised African American men. To mark the occasion, URI is planning a yearlong virtual series focused on suffrage history and modern-day voting issues.
Scheduled speakers include: Kenneth Florey, one of the United States’ foremost collectors of women’s suffrage memorabilia; scholar and award-winning author Martha Jones, professor at Johns Hopkins University; Hilary Levey Friedman, a fellow at the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy and president of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women; URI professor Kathleen McIntyre; and Rhode Island’s Secretary of State Nellie M. Gorbea. The series is sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, the Gender and Women’s Studies Program, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Honors Program, Women’s Leadership Council, and the Suffrage Centennial Committee.
For a complete list of events please see the Suffrage Centennial Lecture Series’ website.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a three-year grant of $750,000 to the University of Connecticut for the Humanities Institute to expand the New England Humanities Consortium (NEHC) Faculty of Color Working Group (FOCWG). The thirteen member institutions of the Consortium support programming in humanities fields such as history, politics, language, art, literature, and philosophy.
Following a 2018 Mellon Foundation $100,000 grant that permitted a pilot phase, faculty of color at NEHC member institutions created and led the Faculty of Color Working Group (FOCWG) for the purpose of increasing mentorship, community building, and dedicated time for scholarly production among faculty of color. Coupled with the development of the NEHC’s social media and publicity, through cross-institutional networks, research and teaching mentorship, and fellowships, the Mellon Foundation grant enables FOCWG to bolster faculty success across schools in the region and the nation.
The Principal investigator for the program is Michael P. Lynch, director of the UConn Humanities Institute, director of NEHC and Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor, Philosophy. Co-principal investigators are Melina Pappademos, director of the UConn Africana Studies Institute, associate professor of history, and director of the Faculty of Color Working Group; and Alexis L. Boylan, director of academic affairs of the UConn Humanities Institute and associate professor of art and art history and Africana Studies.
“With generous support from the Mellon Foundation, this initiative recognizes the environmental obstacles and, at times, outright hostilities to professional advancement that faculty of color face at predominantly white institutions. FOCWG seeks to address these institutional failures by enabling scholarly productivity and professional relationships, even self-care, as safe-guards for aggregated individual success,” says Pappademos. “The FOCWG challenges institutions to dismantle rather than uphold their inflexible structures designed and defended to advantage some faculty members over others.“
In addition to UConn, the consortium includes Amherst College, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Northeastern University, Tufts University, University of New Hampshire, University of Rhode Island, University of Vermont, Wellesley College, and Wheaton College.
The FOCWG provides an urgently needed pathway for faculty of color to navigate the particular challenges they face in academic life. As part of a large network of institutions, the FOCWG grant will develop collaborative fellowship and mentoring opportunities to produce outcomes unachievable by any single institution.
The core activities made possible by the grant include:
There will also be increased support for NEHC administrative functions including a separate FOCWG website, expanded social media presence and creation of an Instagram account to attract younger generation students and scholars, particularly those who attend liberal arts institutions.