Mellon awards $14 million for humanities education initiative
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $14 million to 10 liberal arts colleges and universities as part of its humanities-based education initiative.
The Humanities for All Times program supports the development of liberal arts curricula that aim to educate the next generation of social justice leaders in methods of humanities practice and demonstrate the relevance of those methods to broader social justice actions. The institutions will use the three-year grants of up to $1.5 million to create “curricular projects that help students to see and experience the applicability of humanities in their real-world social justice objectives.” Since 2021 the initiative has awarded support totaling $30 million.
The latest recipients include Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota); Claflin University (Orangeburg, South Carolina); Franklin & Marshall College (Lancaster, Pennsylvania); Haverford College (Pennsylvania); Lake Forest College (Illinois); Middlebury College (Vermont); Southwestern University (Georgetown, Texas); University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, Washington); Wellesley College (Massachusetts); and Xavier University of Louisiana (New Orleans).
“The objective of Humanities for All Times is two-fold,” said Mellon Foundation program director for higher learning Phillip Brian Harper. “On the one hand, it is meant to make students aware of the concrete, practical skills they can develop through humanities study. On the other, it aims to help students recognize that imagination itself, which is one of the primary foci of humanities inquiry, is essential to effective social justice work.”
(Photo credit: Getty Images/ FG Trade)
