Conferences on the State of the Humanities in Higher Education

FAIN: EZ-50285-09

University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)
Christian Smith (Project Director: January 2009 to March 2012)

The applicant requested a Chairman's grant of $29,960 to support a colloquium and planning conference on the reinvigoration of the humanities in higher education, with particular attention to classical, religious, and Renaissance traditions of humanism. The Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Notre Dame will respond to calls from diverse academic constituencies for renewed attention to the common good. The planning conference will bring together humanists, scientists, and religious believers, who seldom communicate. The goals of the conference will be to organize further conferences and symposia on the state of the humanities in higher education and the role of the humanities in democracy and in the development of conceptions of the common good. A publicity strategy through academic and general public venues will be developed, as well as academic outreach to administrators and trustees; and a fundraising plan will be effectuated. The NEH Chairman's Grant of $29,960 will cover the budget for running the conference, travel, lodging, and working meals, and honoraria.

This grant is to fund a colloquium and planning conference intended to stimulate a national debate on the troubled state of the humanities in higher education, the implications for a democratic society and a humane culture and how a humanism rooted in the classical, religious, and Renaissance traditions can be reinvigorated and restored to a central place in higher education.