Planning for the redesign of a minor in environmental studies.

The proposed project will enhance environmental literacy and engagement in northern Mississippi by accomplishing two major objectives. First, we will replace the two currently required courses for our Environmental Studies minor with an interdisciplinary two-semester sequence, ENVS 101 and 102, which will blend humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences to teach seven major areas of inquiry:1) environmental history, 2) sustainability, 3) biodiversity, 4) environmental justice, 5) food, 6) water, and 7) human-nature connections. Second, we will develop a roster of capstone internships for Environmental Studies minors (ENVS 385) that will allow experiential and service learning opportunities. We intend the internship requirement to serve as a gateway experience out of the minor and into the world beyond the university, giving our students an empowering look at how the application of our curriculum can help build more vibrant ecosystems, communities, and careers.

Faculty and curriculum development to create new core courses for an undergraduate program in communication of science and technology.

Vanderbilt University proposes a Humanities Connections planning grant in order to revise the curriculum for our Communication of Science and Technology (CSET) undergraduate program. The revision’s goal is the creation of a core curriculum for the CSET major comprised of courses that integrate humanistic approaches to science communication. Vanderbilt’s CSET program is unique in that it serves students with a strong background in science and it is designed to provide them with the humanistic knowledge and skills to communicate effectively about scientific issues with diverse publics. However, CSET currently only has one fully integrated core course, the introduction to the major. Our goal of creating a core curriculum of 3-4 courses that integrate humanistic modes of thinking with an education in science will enable more effective communication with audiences beyond the scientific arena, potentially influencing public opinion and public policy related to science-based issues.

The development of an Ethics Across the Curriculum project to integrate ethics into professional training and to extend the reach of humanities programs into the community.

The humanities are at the center of a needful rethinking of the purpose of undergraduate education at our institution, as well as the public mission of state-assisted universities. Our proposal brings together, via a slate of new curricular and co-curricular resources focused on Ethics, ethics literacy and ethics agency. The project proposes two major elements of institutional revision: (i) Curriculum change aimed at harmonizing professional training with early exposure to philosophical and research ethics, and (ii) Integration of community ethics and instructional ethics curriculum. This grant will support the necessary planning to create a community ethics network, a program to support faculty via ethics across the curriculum faculty seminars, and planning the establishment of a public ethics resource center to be an anchoring partner between community-based organizations and university faculty and students.

The development of a Health Humanities Certificate that combines an interdisciplinary curriculum with experiential education.

This proposal seeks NEH funding to plan a Health Humanities Certificate at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. This interdisciplinary program will engage three humanities departments as well as the Departments of Psychology, Social Work, and the Institute for Health Sciences. Its integrated curriculum will require students to take a core course, Humanities, Health, and Society, and engage in an experiential practice, including collaborative research and internship opportunities. The objective for this interdisciplinary certificate is threefold: 1) to respond to student need in health related majors for humanities perspectives and pedagogies; 2) to provide students in the humanities with the opportunity to connect their expertise to health science pedagogies and experiential learning; and 3) to serve as a sustainable model for humanities-centered, interdisciplinary programs that fulfill UW- Eau Claire’s goal of ensuring student success through integrative, experiential education.

Planning for an interdisciplinary pathway that would integrate courses on the region into the university’s core curriculum.

“Palouse Matters” proposes a general-education humanities course pathway at Washington State University that explores the complex relationships between people and place in the Palouse: a globally-significant, scenic, and complicated environment. Team-developed and interdisciplinary, Palouse Matters encourages students to read the university’s regional terrain as a rich and contested landscape of beauty, imbalance, transformation, and injustice. Along with augmenting current general education offerings with place-based learning opportunities, Palouse Matters provides hands-on opportunities for field study, civic engagement, and public presentations. Ultimately, the Palouse Matters program will facilitate deep understandings of seemingly incongruous subjects and the relationships among the personal, global, and local, helping students prepare for a lifelong commitment to any community and region.

The development of a digital health humanities curriculum for undergraduates.

We propose to develop a curriculum that prepares students both to address the social and cultural aspects of the data-heavy medicine of the future and to be alert to the significant ethical issues it raises. To do so, we are applying to develop an innovative curriculum in the digital health humanities at Northeastern University. This planning grant will allow us to pursue three avenues to enrich and expand the footprint of the health humanities on our campus: new classes, open-access modules, and experiential education opportunities. In so doing, we will build our curriculum in directions that prepare students to address current and future issues in an increasingly digitized healthcare.

A one-year planning grant to develop interdisciplinary courses integrating art history with other disciplines.

The new Applied Visual Literacy curriculum at Plymouth State University will exploit the interdisciplinary potential of the field of Art History by exploding the chronological and geographic format of the conventional curriculum into a suite of thematic courses that bring together faculty and students from multiple disciplines. Integrating visual literacy into science and pre-preprofessional programs will enable all students to actively participate in the visual culture of the 21st century.

A one-year planning grant to create a minor in integrative medicine and the humanities.

Augustana College proposes a new minor in integrative medicine and the humanities, which will primarily serve the large number of Augustana undergraduates who pursue pre-professional degrees in health care fields. The new minor will (1) deeply integrate humanities content to nurture the ethical, emotional, spiritual, and social skills necessary to prepare individuals to serve as effective, caring health practitioners after graduation, and (2) establish and formalize a new internship program focused on ethics and community outreach with UnityPoint Health, a large regional health care provider. The project’s interdisciplinary planning team will engage in discussions and participate in professional development about integrative medicine and medical/health humanities; identify the courses that need to be revised or created for the minor; obtain approval for the new minor; and strengthen the relationship with UnityPoint Health.

A one-year planning grant to create a diversity and inclusion certificate.

Siena Heights University (SHU) proposes an NEH Connections planning grant entitled “Diversity and Inclusion: Creating a New Online Certificate Program at Siena Heights University” (“D&I”). D&I will be an interdisciplinary program between the Philosophy Department, English Department, History Department, Ethnic and Gender Studies Institute, and Business and Management Division (BAM). The program will be designed for students with interests in attainting a Diversity and Inclusion certificate in addition to their pursued degree at the undergraduate level. The goal of the planning grant is to provide the foundation for SHU to design a new, coherent D&I certificate program at SHU that is qualitatively distinct from the D&I certificates offered at other institutions and which can be offered in either online or blended/hybrid formats.

A one-year planning grant linking humanities and STEM fields through a summer bridge program, experiential learning, and courses in English, biology, and mathematics.

El Paso Community College (EPCC) requests funds to plan HUM-STEM: Redefining Experiential Curriculum for First-Year Students. The curriculum will serve to connect and engage students in the humanities and STEM. This project will build upon existing institutional efforts to incorporate project-based learning into courses, particularly in the STEM areas, but will uniquely infuse humanities-based curriculum and practices, connecting two important academic realms that can nurture and build upon each other. The project will also feature authentic interdisciplinary collaboration and experiential learning opportunities that expose students to the richness, rigor, and vitality of the humanities in three disciplines: English, Biology, and Mathematics. These opportunities will bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical experiences for students and will provide an incubator for faculty to learn and research the impact on students and their learning.

A one-year planning grant to develop a new interdisciplinary bioethics minor. 

Clarkson University proposes an NEH Humanities Connections Planning Grant to develop a new interdisciplinary Bioethics minor. Social trends have led to increased emphasis on STEM and profession-oriented education and a devaluation of the humanities. Despite this, the country is poised for a renewed appreciation of the humanities’ relevance. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised urgent issues of human value in scientific research and health care: ensuring integrity in research; distributing scarce resources now (ventilators) and in the future (vaccines); maintaining trust in public institutions to affect public health; striking a balance between economic and health need. There is an acute need to integrate ethics training into STEM and Pre-health professions majors. A Bioethics minor would respond to this need and prepare students to reason about the intricate connections between human values and science, which have been brought to the fore by the COVID-19 health crisis.

A one-year planning grant to develop new courses in food studies and create a food studies minor.

Virginia Tech proposes a new humanities-focused food studies minor that brings the insights and methods of the liberal arts to the critical study of foodways and food systems. The minor requirements will include a new Introduction to Food Studies course; electives from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences; one-credit hands-on courses, and a capstone course with an experiential learning component. We will begin the planning grant period by holding a workshop guided by directors of other food studies programs. Over the course of the year, the planning committee will continue monthly virtual discussions with these consultants and others as we craft collaborative course proposals and the minor proposal. By the end of the year we will have submitted paperwork for the new courses and minor, created a plan for recruiting students, and developed a shared community around these aims.

A one-year planning grant to develop an ethics certificate program for students in the biosciences. 

Member of the College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Engineering at WNEU are requesting support for the development of a program for interdisciplinary ethics education for students in the biosciences. There are three components to our proposed initiative: (1) the development of a Certificate Program in Ethics of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation, (2) the development of service learning opportunities for students in the biosciences (i.e. the contribution of ethical analyses of case studies to the curriculum), and (3) the development of cross-college faculty collaborations in teaching and research.

Planning a humanistic computing curriculum integrating the humanities and computer science.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville faculty Project Co-Directors Amy Elias (Humanities Center Director and English), Hilary Havens (English), and Amir Sadovnik (Computer Science) will develop new undergraduate courses in “humanistic computing” that bridge the humanities and the computing sciences and bring together computing science skills; humanities pedagogy and habits of inquiry; and experiential-learning opportunities with community partners in East Tennessee, campus partners, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory partners. This grant will fund two workshops and a year of monthly planning activities for a cohort of UTK faculty and community organizations working to define these classes for the UTK General Education curriculum as well as for a future minor in Humanities Computing. Open to all students, classes will be interdisciplinary and include critical cultural analysis of digital media and computers; skills training in computer programs; and engaged learning course projects.

A one-year planning grant to develop an undergraduate concentration in intercultural competency for students across the liberal arts and professional programs in nursing, business, and education.

Nevada State College (NSC) seeks support from the NEH to develop an Intercultural Competency Concentration that will enable all undergraduate students at NSC, regardless of their degree program, to purposefully build their intercultural knowledge and self-efficacy in their fields of study and workplaces. The support of the NEH Humanities Connections Planning Grant will enable NSC’s humanities faculty to collaborate with faculty from our degree programs with a pre-professional focus (e.g., business, education, and nursing) to develop a cohesive learning community that spans our three Schools, but is also tailored to work with the specific needs of each degree program. The one-year planning phase (2021-2022) will produce a comprehensive proposal for the Intercultural Competency Concentration, to be reviewed by the NSC Faculty Senate and Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents during the 2022-2023 school year.

Planning a new academic program in digital innovation, integrating computer science, digital communication, philosophy, and ethics.

Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) will plan, research, and develop the Digital Innovation (DI) Program. The goal of this new program is to integrate the technical knowledge of Computer Science and Digital Communications with habits of mind fostered by the Humanities, and especially those found in Philosophy and Ethics. The desired outcomes for our planning process are straightforward: Within 12 months, we will plan, design, and prepare to propose a new major degree program in DI with an accompanying minor in Digital Ethics. The program will be for those students who desire an interdisciplinary, humanities-based program that tightly integrates digital skills within a humanities framework. The minor program will be for those students in the Communication Arts and STEM areas who wish to focus more on technical skills while still engaging with the humanities in a manner that will both better frame their understanding of the technology and better prepare them to advance in their careers.

Planning for the creation of new interdisciplinary Core courses and for a humanities hub to serve as the home of the new curriculum.

This NEH Humanities Connections planning grant will establish ongoing, engaged humanities resources for interdisciplinary Core course development and lay groundwork for an engaged humanities hub. This integration of humanities learning at the University of Portland will happen through two pathways: first, through the creation of pedagogical resources and a summer institute that will help faculty incorporate engaged humanities approaches into interdisciplinary courses for the new Core curriculum; and second, by building groundwork for the creation of an engaged humanities hub that will house this interdisciplinary Core work that will cultivate broader programming that inspires and supports collaboration across humanities and non-humanities fields and with community partners. The work of the planning year will both assess and meet immediate curricular needs and establish a foundation for the continual integration of the humanities into diverse subject areas at UP.

Development of a minor in environmental humanities.

Given the many environmental challenges faced by New Orleans and the wider Gulf South – coastal erosion, rising sea levels, ongoing subsidence, and industrial pollution, among others – the study of humans’ relationship to the environment is particularly pressing for Tulane students. In response to the environmental urgencies of our time and our unique location, we propose creating an Environmental Humanities minor at Tulane, a trademark of which will be new interdisciplinary courses team-taught by faculty in a wide range of fields. The courses in this new minor will consistently utilize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region as case studies for meaningful experiential, place-based, and community engagement opportunities.

Collaboration between faculty in history and in education to develop and pilot new inquiry-based curricular plans and resources.

St. Bonaventure University proposes “Collaborative Pathways for Inquiry-Based Education: Piloting a Humanities Education Partnership,” which will pilot a new pedagogical approach that promotes (1) collaboration between humanities disciplines and the School of Education, (2) student engagement with community partners, and (3) inquiry-based experiential learning supported by technology in both humanities and education courses. The project will strengthen history faculty members’ understanding of the needs of education students, train both history and education faculty members to incorporate inquiry-based experiential learning into their courses, and better prepare education students to teach the humanities in the K-12 classroom. The faculty team will include four history and three adolescence education faculty members. Phillip Payne, professor and chair of history, and Gabriel Swarts, assistant professor and director and chair of adolescence education, will serve as project co-directors.

Implementation of two majors in a new Department of Environment, Sustainability, and Health Equity.

At the University of California, Riverside (UCR), in collaboration with community partners in Inland Southern California and units across our campus, a multidisciplinary group of faculty is planning two new undergraduate majors in a new Department of Environment, Sustainability and Health Equity (ESHQ). Our goal for the NEH Planning Grant will be to develop humanities educational strategies as a basis for compelling and accessible narratives of environmental sustainability and health equity.

Development of introductory and capstone experiential learning courses for a public humanities major.

We are seeking a planning grant to support the development of a undergraduate interdisciplinary major in Global Public Humanities within the School of Global Studies and Languages. The grant will be used to develop both introductory courses in public humanities and capstone experiential courses.

The development of a One Health Communications minor, a set of five interdisciplinary courses focused on how ideas and meanings are produced and delivered, connecting humanities training with scientific thinking.

When and where the STEM fields have failed, it has often been as much a communication as a scientific issue. These fields struggle to translate knowledge both for public consumption and for the purpose of intellectual collaboration. The humanities have long been overlooked as a resource for improving the communication of scientific knowledge. The creation of a One Health Communications minor, the main outcome of this proposal, will elevate the role of the humanities, particularly English and rhetorical studies, within Delaware Valley University’s very popular One Health initiative which offers programming designed to better connect the various pre-vet, pre-health and other STEM programs. In addition to a new minor, the project outcomes will include a professional development workshop focused on integrating lessons from the field of rhetoric into the sciences; and campus-wide presentations that will address topics related to rhetoric and science as part of the One Health speaker series.

Faculty and curricular development for a three-course certificate integrating American literature into engineering and architecture education.

This proposal seeks planning grant funding to develop a three-course program and certificate at Washington State University called "Dwelling in American Literature: An Experiential Program for Architects and Engineers." The program will significantly enhance the humanistic aspect of engineering and architecture education through interdisciplinary courses that bring U.S. literature into technical curriculum. The literary course content and experiential learning will connect the human experience of inhabiting, working, visiting, and otherwise engaging in and around the physical constructed world with the structures and built landscape upon which architecture and engineering students typically focus. To develop the program, the PIs will work with an advisory council, conduct focus groups, develop curriculum for three courses, create a website, and submit the final product for university curriculum approval.

The design of core courses and experiential learning activities for an interdisciplinary social justice minor.

Caldwell University, a private, Catholic Dominican liberal arts institution in Caldwell, New Jersey, requests support for the “Embracing the Challenge of a More Perfect Union: Plan to Develop a New Social Justice Minor” project focused on exploring theories and issues surrounding social justice, an area of high interest to Caldwell students and its founders, the Sisters of Saint Dominic. This project will lead to a new social justice minor degree connecting the humanities with the social sciences and professional fields and a new social justice core course anchored in the humanities that every Caldwell student must complete. This study will serve as a pathway from the humanities to their chosen major and profession by emphasizing the development of soft skills and fostering a greater understanding of diversity and different types of injustices. Professional development workshops will be offered for Caldwell faculty to develop greater expertise in team teaching with the humanities.

The creation of an undergraduate minor in Spanish for mental healthcare, which would integrate knowledge, methods, and skills from the humanities, social sciences, and health sciences. 

Benedictine University is proposing the creation of an undergraduate level minor in Spanish for Mental Healthcare. This interdisciplinary collaboration, including the Departments of Language and Literature, Psychology, and the Department of Nursing and Health, aims to equip undergraduate students with cultural and linguistic proficiency in Spanish for those pursuing mental health careers in a variety of settings. This program would enhance the student learning experience, allowing psychology majors to be more competitive in the marketplace as interpreters in healthcare and mental healthcare facilities, or as inter-cultural mediators in a variety of healthcare settings. This program provides an opportunity to build career preparation into the humanities while addressing a national workforce need, thus addressing the issue of relevance in the humanities.