According to a UNM press release, the UNM Departments of American Studies, English, History and Linguistics — along with 28 other colleges and universities — have been chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to rethink and transform the education of the “next generation” of humanities doctoral candidates.
UNM received $25,000 to support and expand efforts that are already underway, according to the release. Each of the grants requires the institution to raise matching funds as a sign of their commitment.
“The University of New Mexico is the nation’s only Very High Research, Hispanic-Serving Institution, the flagship university of a multicultural border state,” said Melissa Bokovoy, chair of the Department of History. “In our state, humanities scholarship plays a crucial role in opening possibilities for understanding, across lines of national, ethnic, racial, cultural, and gender difference.”
According to the press release, the initiative — titled “LoboHUB(Humanities Unbound): Planning for the Next Generation of Humanities Scholars at UNM” — will unite the humanities disciplines, graduate studies, alumni networks, and professional communities in order to discuss how to transform existing doctoral programs into education models that prepare humanities scholars for careers in many different professions.
“The academic-focused future we’re accustomed to training graduate students for is disappearing,” NEH Chairman William D. Adams stated in the announcement of the grant recipients. “If graduate programs wish to make a case for the continuation of graduate education in the humanities, they’re going to have to think about the professional futures of their students in entirely different ways.”
Matthew Reisen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MrMojoReisen.
