The Miami University community celebrated the dedication of the new Humanities Center April 16 during a service at the Shriver Center.
The new center is located in Laws Hall and is officially open as of the dedication last Thursday.
Stanley Katz, keynote speaker at the event and president of the American Council of Learned Societies, spoke on "The Humanities and Hard Times." Katz teaches public and international affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.
According to Katz, state legislatures are in slash-and-burn mode. In this economic downturn, he said he believes the discipline of humanities will face a tough road.
President David Hodge described the new center as a way of fulfilling Miami's role of commitment to liberal education.
"This center is devoted as a traditional humanities center to research," Hodge said. "In the middle of a time like this, our moorings become all the more important. Our humanity above all else must find its expression as we engage in the world by inviting broad ranges of visions and opportunities to come together."
According to Hodge, deep engagement with students is a hallmark of Miami. In the new humanities center, Hodge said students will have to opportunity to work alongside faculty to engage in interdisciplinary research. Everyone interested in the humanities will have access to the new center.
Hodge said he believes scholarly collaboration will help advance the intellectual agenda across the world. On a more local level, the new center will allow students, faculty and staff to participate in new areas of scholarly investigation across campus.
According to Allan Winkler, distinguished professor of history, the Humanities Center will try to encourage interdisciplinary, collaborative work in the humanities.
Winkler, who has been working as director in the planning process for the past year, said the center will offer several fellowships, each for a two-year period, to give humanities faculty members release time to work together on humanities issues.
Winkler said while there are other Humanities Centers in universities around the country, Miami has never had one.
When Karen Schilling became dean of the College of Arts and Science, she asked why not, and asked a number of humanities chairs and faculty to look into the possibility.
This new Humanities Center had the full support of Provost Jeffrey Herbst.
Mary Cayton, chair of the history department, helped spark discussions leading to funding for a Humanities documentary unit, to try to highlight projects going on across Miami's campus. From there, a group of four - Charles Ganelin, chair of the Spanish and Portuguese department, Kerry Powell, chair of the English department, Laura Mandell, professor of English and Wietse de Boer, associate professor of history - worked together for a year crafting a proposal for a Presidential Academic Achievement Award.
Miami alumnus and benefactor John W. Altman provided the funds for the fellowship program and for other outreach activity.
Schilling said she sees the new center as "an opportunity for development of character, integrity, compassion and citizenship - all of which are pillars of a university rooted deeply in liberal education."
Schilling said she hopes to reassert humanities as a central tenet in Miami education.
