The Mellon Foundation has awarded a grant to the university, according to a BrandeisNOW article published on Sept. 23. The grant is described as a 15-month $150,000 grant to re-envision the “Role of the [Mandel] Humanities Center in the 21st-Century University,” according to the Mandel Center’s page.
Professor Ulka Anjaria (ENG)—the director of the Mandel Center for the Humanities— is leading this project by connecting with leaders in the humanities across institutions to understand how to address challenges facing the university today, according to the article. Some of the issues that will be addressed include the need to advance the scholarship of historically underrepresented groups and the relationship between liberal arts and practical education.
The grant will be targeting four “critical challanges,” according to the article. The challenges are “the need to advance the scholarship of and by historically underrepresented groups, the relationship of the university to surrounding communities, the relationship between liberal arts and practical skills and the future of liberal arts and doctoral education at Brandeis,” according to the article.
Upcoming events at the Mandel Center include a Mandel Lecture in the Humanities with drag artist LaWhore Vagistan on Oct. 28 and another lecture on Divas, Drag Queens, Aunties and Other Academic Personas on Nov. 1.
This is not the first grant the university has been awarded by the Mellon Foundation. The Foundation, whose mission is to “seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive” through grantmaking in the humanities, arts and culture, public knowledge and higher education, has awarded Brandeis University over $13 million in 27 grants since 1975.
Some grants include one for developing programs in arts and sciences awarded in 1991 and one supporting a Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures entitled “Rethinking the Age of Revolution: Rights, Representation, and the Global Imaginary” in 2012, according to the Mellon Foundation’s webpage.
