A major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will provide new learning opportunities for Kalamazoo College students and faculty seeking solutions to societal problems and promote the critical role of the humanities in social justice work.
The $1.297 million three-year grant will provide funding for the Colleges Humanities Integrated Locational Learning (HILL) project, which is building student coursework rooted in Ks commitment to experiential learning and social justice to address issues such as racism, border policing, economic inequities, homelessness and global warming, while examining history, how humans share land, and the dislocations that bring people to a communal space.
The project was envisioned by Associate Professor of English Shanna Salinas (Co-PI), Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership Assistant Professor of Sociology Francisco Villegas (Co-PI) and Professor of English Bruce Mills. HILL will invite K faculty to build curricula that foreground how power structures produce destabilizing dynamics and the collective response(s) of affected communities through the development of course materials, collaborative faculty-student research and community engagement, the development of program assessments and the sharing of oral histories tied to partnering projects and organizations.
Each class within the curriculum will fit into one of two cluster programs: the first focuses on hubs outside of Kalamazoo such as New Orleans, St. Louis and San Diego; the second looks within Kalamazoo with themes relevant to the city such as prison reform and abolition, and migrants and refugees. Both cluster programs will contribute to a digital humanities initiative for publishing, archiving and assessing coursework and partnerships. Each will provide opportunities for immersing students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences.
Salinas and Villegas will co-direct the HILL initiative. The three sites outside KalamazooNew Orleans, St. Louis and San Diegowere chosen for their current or historical dispersion of people from their homeland, as well as dislocated communities with strong histories of social justice movements. About 15 to 20 students at a time will go to those cities to further their experiential learning. Salinas added that faculty and students will first put in research and legwork related to their collaborative partnerships with a year of concentrated work. Then, by about December 2022, they will be ready to conduct in-person learning, first in New Orleans.
In addition to co-directing the project, Salinas will also serve as the curriculum coordinator for New Orleans. We hope that students will develop an understanding of place as a living entity with a storied history and people who are a part of that location, Salinas said. We want students to learn what it means to be a part of a particular place. We want them to contend with histories, and meet the residents and people who inhabit the spaces we study with a real sense of generosity and purpose. We want to change students understanding about how they approach space and operate within it.
Villegas plans to build on his strong connections within Kalamazoo County in leading the cluster focused on issues inside Kalamazoo. As a member of an exploratory taskforce (and now advisory board chair), he helped Kalamazoo County launch a community ID program in 2018, allowing residents, including those otherwise unable to get a state ID, to obtain a county ID.
I think the grant speaks to the Mellon Foundation seeing promise in the kind of work we are imagining, Villegas said. Its encouraging that they are willing to invest so greatly in such a project. Theyre also recognizing the ethics of the project. Theyre trusting that were going to engage with cities, including our home city, with a sense of respect and with a recognition of furthering community agendas already in place rather than imposing our understandings to other spaces. Most importantly, were invested in thinking about how students can consider the humanities in these projects as a way of producing nuanced understandings toward addressing very big problems.
Mills will lead the digital humanities portion of the initiative. He noted that one measure of success for participating faculty will be how HILL shows the enduring dimensions of its partnerships with the digital project playing a large role.
When you create classes, writing projects, oral histories or collaborate on community projects, these efforts often get lost when they just go into a file or a paper or are not passed along in local memory, Mills said. The digital humanities hub is an essential part of this initiative because faculty, students and city partners will have a site for a collective work to be published or presented. Community members will have access to it. That means the work being done will not disappear.
In addition to Salinas, Villegas and Mills, Associate Professor of Music Beau Bothwell and Professor of Art and Art History Christine Hahn will be curriculum coordinators for St. Louis and San Diego respectively. The first four courses that will be offered in the HILL project are Advanced Literary Studies (Salinas, English); Missionaries to Pilgrims: Diasporic Returns (Associate Professor Espelencia Baptiste, Anthropology and Sociology); The World Through New Orleans (Bothwell, Music); and Architecture Urbanism Identity (Hahn, Art and Art History).
The Mellon Foundations grant to K is one of 12 being issued to liberal arts colleges as a part of the organizations Humanities for All Times initiative, which was created to support curriculum that demonstrates real-world applications to social justice pursuits and objectives.
Kalamazoo Colleges commitment to social justice is most profoundly realized through students opportunities to connect the theoretical with hands-on work happening in our communities, Kalamazoo College President Jorge G. Gonzalez said. Were grateful for the Mellon Foundations generous support, which will enable us to build on our foundation of experiential education and demonstrate to our students how the humanities have a practical role in fostering positive social change.
The Mellon Foundation notes that humanities thought and scholarship efforts influence developments in the social world. However, theres been a sharp decline in undergraduate humanities study and degree recipients nationwide over the past decade despite students marked interest in social justice issues. The initiative targets higher student participation in the humanities and social justice while building their skills in diagnosing cultural conditions that impede a just and equitable society.
The Humanities for All Times initiative underscores that its not only critical to show students that the humanities improve the quality of their everyday lives, but also that they are a crucial tool in efforts to bring about meaningful progressive change in the world, said Phillip Brian Harper, the Mellon Foundations higher learning program director. We are thrilled to support this work at liberal arts colleges across the country. Given their unequivocal commitment to humanities-based knowledge, and their close ties to the local communities in which such knowledge can be put to immediate productive use, we know that these schools are perfectly positioned to take on this important work.
See the rest here:
Humanities Grant Boosts Experiential Learning Project - News and Events - Kalamazoo College
- Student-Led Working Group to Abolish GUPD Calls for Greater Community Involvement - Georgetown University The Hoya - April 10th, 2024 [April 10th, 2024]
- Nobel Peace Prize - Wikipedia - January 10th, 2023 [January 10th, 2023]
- Albanese government neuters ABCC ahead of abolition - The Australian Financial Review - October 28th, 2022 [October 28th, 2022]
- 3 Good Reasons You Should Learn More About Angela Davis - Because of Them We Can - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Eradication of forced labor -- striking example of political will - The Korea Herald - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Intrusion impending: what contractors need to know about proposed abolition of the ABCC - Lexology - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- What Does It Mean To 'Abolish the Family'? - ArtReview - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- UN experts call for complete abolition of death penalty as 'only viable path' - UN News - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Opinion | Social justice work must continue - UI The Daily Iowan - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Rank-and-file action committees independent of IG Metall union needed to defend all jobs at all sites - WSWS - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Japan plans to abolish health insurance cards in fall 2024 | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis - - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Are you buying the copaganda? - mlk50.com - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- 'Crown Jewel of Criminal Justice System': Voters In Five States Will Address Legal Loophole That Still Allows Slavery - Atlanta Black Star - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- TUPD aims to connect with Tufts community over coffee - Tufts Daily - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Ex-condemned prisoner relives 11-year wait for hangmans noose - The Herald - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- The Ongoing Fight Against Femicides and Violence Against Women in the Caribbean - Rolling Stone - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- At Tate Britain, Hew Locke Powerfully Reckons with Colonialist Histories and Their Lingering Aftereffects - ARTnews - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Presentation of the Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - World - ReliefWeb - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Sanitation staff on strike over salary delay in Delhi - The New Indian Express - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- Human Rights Watch Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Burundi - Human Rights Watch - October 15th, 2022 [October 15th, 2022]
- UN experts warn of associated torture and cruel punishment - OHCHR - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- How Lead Belly twice won freedom from prison through his music - Far Out Magazine - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Why don't Popes ever win the Nobel Peace Prize? - Crux Now - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Hunting: Where the end began - Reaction - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Greece is committed to reforming its mass media and protecting personal data - Hellenic News of America - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Standing against war and nuclear catastrophe: lessons from Port Kembla - Red Flag - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Liz Truss warned tax cuts like hers could lead to 'boom and bust' in unearthed 2018 clip - The Mirror - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Opinion | The Puppets and the Puppet Masters - Common Dreams - October 11th, 2022 [October 11th, 2022]
- Intersecting Drug Policy and Abolition: A Conversation - TalkingDrugs - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Rival parties to lock horns over Gender Ministry in government organization reform plan - The Korea Herald - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Reforms, roll-outs and freezes in the tax and benefit system | Institute for Fiscal Studies - ifs.org.uk - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Kwasi Kwarteng to bring forward planned fiscal statement in another U-turn as it happened - The Guardian - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- IR35 reforms repeal: How it stands to benefit the tech sectors SMEs and contractors - ComputerWeekly.com - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The Future of Truth - Portsmouth Daily Times - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Governor Hochul Names Canal Corporation Vessel in Honor of the Inspirational Life and Legacy of Harriet Tubman - ny.gov - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Tory MPs hit back after threats issued to those opposing 45p tax rate abolition - The Guardian - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- John Hood: Don't That Just Beat All? Neuse News - Neuse News - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Scrapping inheritance tax is a terrible idea - The Spectator - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Reeves: Government instincts in mini-Budget were to cut taxes for wealthiest - LabourList - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- The Biggest Exhibitions To See In London And Beyond: Autumn 2022 - Londonist - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Actually, Black Mermaid Folklore Has Been Around Long Before Disneys The Little Mermaid - Yahoo Life - October 6th, 2022 [October 6th, 2022]
- Build solidarity with rail workers fight! Help strengthen, expand the labor movement! The Militant - The Militant - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- The Most Absolute Abolitionnew book explores abolition and lives of escaped slaves - Socialist Worker - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Democracy Cant Be Reduced to Voting in 2022 We Must Build the Future We Want - Truthout - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Christophe Ferrari denounces the announced abolition of the CVAE - US Sports - US Sports - - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Child labour: Nashik tribals struggle to survive, give kids to goatherds for Rs 10K - The New Indian Express - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Library Takeover Returns: Submit Your Application! | City of Madison - City of Madison, Wisconsin - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Do Britain and the world really need a king? - People's World - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Soka Gakkai International's Nuclear Abolition Work - Tricycle - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Clinton nonprofit funneled $75,000 to 'defund the police' group: report - New York Post - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Cops and Prosecutors Truly Work the Same Side: Ingrid Raphal and Melissa Gira Grant on their FOV Doc They Wont Call It Murder - Filmmaker Magazine - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The Iran Man Behind the Nuclear Curtain Jewish Policy Center - Jewish Policy Center - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Dorothy Roberts Tried to Warn Us - New York Magazine - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Hear Me Now: The Black Potters Of Old Edgefield, South Carolina - Antiques And The Arts Weekly - Antiques and the Arts Online - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The Spin | Zimbabwe's upset win should spur England to be good global citizens - The Guardian - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Letter of the week: The Proms deserve better - The New Statesman - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Why We Should Abolish the Family Current Affairs - Current Affairs - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- On the Need for Honest Abolitionists. | Jeff Hood - Patheos - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Chile rejects a progressive constitution with big changes - NPR - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Where Solidarity, Abolition, and Queer History Meet - The Nation - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Addressing the sugar crisis long term - Manila Bulletin - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Experts react: The United Kingdom has a new prime minister. What should the world expect from Liz Truss? - Atlantic Council - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Explained Books | An eminent cardiac surgeon's account of his work, and of Kashmir - The Indian Express - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Formerly incarcerated women of color face worse health in later life | OUPblog - OUPblog - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- The crime against humanity that is the modern OS desktop, and how to kill it - The Register - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Kenya: William Ruto's triumph, By Reuben Abati - Premium Times - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- What shall we do with the climate refugees? - Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspapers - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- Digitisation of records, land reforms turn 'Naya J&K' hi-tech - Rising Kashmir - September 6th, 2022 [September 6th, 2022]
- What year was slavery abolished in the US? - Fox News - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- The United Nations Human Rights Council met for its 50th Regular Session from June 13 to July 8, 2022. - WCADP - World Coalition Against the Death... - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Special Tax Regimes for Mobile Individuals and Their Impact on the EU's Single Market - Bloomberg Tax - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Undergraduate Summer Research Highlights - Newsroom | University of St. Thomas - University of St. Thomas Newsroom - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- A safe and healthy working environment is now a human right - Workplace Insight - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Haryana dismisses alleged abolition of teachers post as baseless - The Statesman - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- New book explores wicked problems facing peace studies scholars and practitioners // Department of Political Science // University of Notre Dame -... - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Universities Are Plundering Cities. How Can This Relationship Change? - Truthout - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Edinburgh should apologise for role in slavery and colonialism, says academic - STV News - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- The inside story of the CIA v Russia from cold war conspiracy to 'black' propaganda in Ukraine - The Conversation Indonesia - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Radical gender theory has now made its way into more than 4,000 US schools - Home - WSFX - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]
- Infanticide: Excitement as 5-year-old reunites with family in FCT - Blueprint Newspapers Limited - August 25th, 2022 [August 25th, 2022]