The University will make a major announcement within the next several weeks regarding the Humanities Initiative, a multidisciplinary effort launched last year to strengthen teaching and research in the humanities.
A working group including Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P'12, Provost Mark Schlissel P'15, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, Deputy Provost Joseph Meisel and Director of the Cogut Center for the Humanities and Professor of History and Music Michael Steinberg is still making final decisions about how to attract six new faculty members and spend the anonymous donation of $3 million allotted to the initiative.
When implemented, the initiative will encourage laboratory research in the humanities by providing venues for research across disciplines, Steinberg said. In addition to creating positions for six renowned scholars of the humanities, the initiative will provide funding for collaborative programming, multidisciplinary graduate research and new coursework.
"We made an announcement last fall that we would hire six new faculty, each of whom would have a degree of flexibility in teaching so they could develop projects," McLaughlin said. "This year, we are scaling up the initiative to include a wider set of proposals for the humanities centered on collaborative research and teaching."
The Humanities Initiative — started by former Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P'07, now a professor of economics — is still in the planning phase. The working group must receive approval from the Academic Priorities Committee before disclosing full details about the project to the community, McLaughlin said.
No new faculty members have yet been hired and none of the money donated to the cause has been spent.
The University hopes to have extended "a couple of offers out for faculty hires" and initiated some interdisciplinary research projects by the end of the year, McLaughlin said. Of the three to four candidates considered as finalists last year for these faculty positions, only one remains under consideration, he said.
The hiring procedure for the six positions this year will likely entail soliciting nominations from faculty, but nominees will have to be named by professors from at least two departments to be considered, McLaughlin said. Ultimately, the University is searching for younger and mid-career scholars who are focused on "what they could do here that they could not do where they are now," he said.
The announcement coming in the next few weeks will likely include further information on hiring and how the $3 million will be spent.
"We haven't worked out any final details," Schlissel said. "We have just thought in more detail about how to help the initiative achieve its goals."
The initiative will build on the University's tradition of academic exploration and curricular openness, Steinberg said. The Cogut Center for the Humanities will provide the home and resources for initiative projects by creating opportunities for collaboration.
"The initiative will feed into the Cogut Center's efforts to create interactions among different subjects," Schlissel added.
By dedicating resources to strengthen the humanities, the University is ultimately hoping to encourage innovation in the humanities on par with advancement in the sciences, McLaughlin said. This priority, he added, is unique to Brown.
"Brown is making a big statement about the humanities that other universities aren't making," McLaughlin said. "The initiative will help us continue to keep strength in the humanities part of our national profile."
