The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Tuesday with a $2.9 million grant, which will be used to expand humanities initiatives at the University.
The grant will help the University hire faculty, create new courses and conduct research in two emerging cross-disciplinary areas: environmental humanities and comparative cultures of the pre-modern world, Meredith Woo, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, said in an email.
"The first area will help our students think deeply about their place in their natural surroundings, as well as the impact and presence of our environment in the way we think about every facet of our lives," Woo said. "The second area will deepen our understanding of the evolution of our cultures and our awareness of other civilizations in relationship to ours."
Woo said she and President Teresa A. Sullivan went to New York about a year ago to meet with the Mellon Foundation leadership. Woo said she then developed a proposal, in collaboration with University faculty, centered around creating cross-disciplinary humanities research.
The grant will establish fellowships for doctoral students in related fields as well as seminars aimed at preparing them for teaching in an increasingly competitive academic job market, according to a University press release.
Woo hopes graduate teaching assistants will bring what they learn into the discussions they will lead, "thus engaging undergraduate students beyond discipline-bound conventions, into a more permeable and diverse learning environment," she said.
The University's new Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures, which is directed by English Prof. Michael Levenson, will provide the structure for faculty and graduate students to further their work in the humanities.
As director, Levenson said his goal is "to create a welcoming environment for high-level research and scholarship, but also to create an active, ongoing climate of public conversation."
Levenson said the grant will make possible 10 faculty appointments during the next five years.
"[These interdisciplinary areas are] new fields where the University can become prominent by hiring in a cluster," Levenson said.
He added the nature and timing of the appointments will be announced in the next few weeks, and the appointments will allow for cooperation between the departments in selecting new faculty members.
"What absolutely excites me," Levenson said, "is this chance to bring as many people in the community into a new style of conversation."
-Joseph Liss contributed to this article.
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