English Prof. Michael Levenson and History Prof. Sophia Rosenfeld addressed the Board of Visitors Educational Policy Committee yesterday about the new Institute of Humanities and Global Cultures.
The Institute led by Levenson and Rosenfeld aims to sponsor academic initiatives and conferences to promote the humanities.
Rosenfeld said the Institute was "an effort to rethink what the humanities can be... not in a manner of defense planning," referring to a reported drop in student enrollment in humanities programs across the nation. Levenson said this decline has not occurred at the University.
Levenson said students have already given their support for a "humanities week" in May and said he was committed to promoting both international and local incentives to study humanities.
"We want to vivify and animate this community," he said. "Students are thinking very seriously about the future and where the opportunities are."
The Institute's founding coincides with a larger University attempt to "showcase what U.Va. is doing to take a lead in the humanities," John Simon, the University's executive vice president and provost, said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily Monday. Simon said students increasingly have to work in a global workplace after graduation, so it is important to engage students with the global environment.
Rosenfeld said she hopes the Institute will help students learn to analyze topics from different perspectives and serve as a return to the original principles of the Academical Village.
"This program gives us an opportunity to reinstate the purpose of the University in its initial incarnations," Rosenfeld said.
-compiled by Anna Perina
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