Elizabethtown College is in the middle of the second year with its Mellon Grant, “Confronting Challenges with Confidence: Humanities for Our World Today.” This grant includes $300,000 over a three year period from Aug. 1, 2017 to July 31, 2020. The College spent roughly $100,000 last year and is expecting a similar number this year as well.
As referenced by a section of the Mellon Grant Interim Report (dated Oct. 31, 2018) which was shared by Dean for Curriculum and Honors Dr. Brian Newsome, the grant has provided support for four main areas of the humanities: Interdisciplinary Courses including Humanities, Global and Regional Heritage Studies Courses or Experiences, Faculty-Student Research in the Humanities and Integration of Digital Humanities Course Content.
There is a call for proposals from faculty for portions of the grant. Newsome referred to the grant as a “Russian nesting doll,” because it works as faculty request smaller grants from within the larger institutional Mellon Grant.
For the interdisciplinary courses to be part of the grant, the courses must be team-taught by two faculty members (including at least one humanities faculty member) and it must lead students in an interdisciplinary study. It can aid students in fulfilling multiple core requirements at once and can increase opportunities for additional electives for certain students.
The Global and Regional Heritage Studies Courses or Experiences section features engagement in community-based learning for students as well as community-based research both at home and abroad.
Faculty-Student Research in the Humanities section allows students to participate in the Summer Creative Arts and Research Program (SCARP) with humanities-based projects as opposed to what has historically been majorly STEM disciplines. The structure of the program has been modified to facilitate forms of archival and site research for humanities majors.
Finally, the Integration of Digital Humanities Course Content section supports the use of digital methodologies to promote learning and connectedness. This part of the grant has helped to finish the Digital Humanities Hub, including getting technology for courses such as visiting assistant professor of English Dr. Tara Moore’s CW386 course and professor of history and department chair Dr. David Kenley’s HI170 course.
Recently approved additions for the 2018/2019 year included a redesign of the Etownian website, a new database for Etown students to submit their scholarly work (such as Honors and Honors-in-the-Discipline theses, SCARP presentations, and Scholarship and Creative Arts Day presentations) called JayScholar and many more interdisciplinary courses and other projects and trips.
Associate professor of music education Dr. Kevin Shorner-Johnson and Peacemaker-in-Residence Jonathan Rudy will be co-teaching the IC 204 Artistic Peacebuilding course, a dream of Shorner-Johnson’s that would not have been possible without the Mellon Grant.
Rudy and Shorner-Johnson have been able to attend conferences and pull together literature and research from diverse disciplines to prepare for this artistic peacebuilding course.
“Mellon Grant has also further empowered our artistic peacebuilding work with Latinx communities in Central Pennsylvania by supporting work to bring Latinx communities together around a major Puerto Rican concert in March,” Shorner-Johnson said.
The study of artistic peacebuilding makes individuals realize that humans “have the power to mediate and transform conflict through the power of the arts,” Shorner-Johnson said. The arts are essential to peacebuilding and will be uncovered further throughout their course.
