UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences has received a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund its new Humanities initiative.

The four-year initiative, called “Humanities for the Public Good,” began on July 1, led by Senior Associate Dean Terry Rhodes.

The initiative has been broken down into three overarching themes: Integrating New Models of Education, Integrating Digital Approaches into Research and Education, and Public Engagement and Outreach.

“This is thrilling that we’ve received this grant,” said Rhodes. “It’s going to enable us to integrate public humanities more into the curriculum and to tap digital technology for our humanities scholarship and teaching – and then to reach out to diverse communities in this region and beyond, to make sure that humanities are relevant to the public and that we are connecting with the communities beyond the campus.”

This initiative will reach students and faculty in more than 13 departments and seven institutes, centers and disciplinary programs and will provide funding for humanities course development, travel grants for faculty, and support for graduate students through paid summer internships, scholarships, and stipends.

“We have 18,000 students within the College of Arts and Sciences,” said Rhodes. “So we see the type of students that come in…they are brilliant students, multi-talented, could go in many directions…

“So our goal is to enable them to begin to tap their fullest potential, and to see what perhaps could come beyond as they leave the university.”

Rhodes says that as the oldest public university in the country, UNC was built on the ethics of connecting with the public.

“Dedication to social justice service and public engagement has been a hallmark of our institution, our faculty, our staff, (and) our students for a long, long time,” she says. “The Mellon Foundation recognized this and selected us as the institution to help move forward this kind of work – so we’re delighted and proud to have received this grant, and look forward to getting started here.”

The search to hire a new initiative director for Humanities for the Public Good is ongoing.

For more information, visit the school’s website.

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