The Hurford Humanities Center places at the heart of its mission an array of programs intended to strengthen the humanities and the arts at the College. Through its Faculty Seminar, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowships, Working Groups, Reading Groups, and opportunities for collaborative research between faculty and students and other programs, the Center champions scholarship as a core element of the College’s vital intellectual life.

Two of the Center’s major initiatives for faculty each year, the Faculty Humanities Seminar and the Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship, are integrally connected in order to maximize their enhancement of Haverford’s academic program. The seminar is a treasured source of faculty renewal, refreshment, and innovation. Each fall, faculty across disciplines are invited to apply to join the next year’s seminar if they feel that it might enhance their own research and teaching interests, and afford them rewarding collaborative or interdisciplinary interactions. Haverford’s Mellon Fellows are recent humanities Ph.D.s who are brought to Haverford—to work with faculty (in their first year, the Faculty Humanities Seminar), with students (with two courses each year), and with the wider community (in a public symposium mounted during each Fellow’s second year. (More information on Mellon Program under “Fellowships.”) The Faculty Seminar topic inspires the criteria of the annual Mellon Post-Doc search in the hopes of identifying young academics who might bring an expertise or field of interest that will enhance not only the seminar, but Haverford’s overall curriculum as well.

Other initiatives designed specifically for faculty include:

• Grants (Access/Enrichment Grants, Course Renovation/Innovation Grants, Course Enhancement Grants);
• Funding for sponsored groups (Working Groups, Reading Groups);
• Funding for forums: symposia (such as the annual Mellon Fellow Symposium, or a Faculty and/or Department proposed symposium); or film or speaker series;
• Funding for summer opportunities: for faculty to hire Student Research Assistants (SRAs) and for a curricular institute;
• Funding arts experiences: “Dialogues on Arts”; for residencies of artists, scholars, and performers; or art exhibits or performance events.

Guidelines:
For Faculty: Arts Events - Performances & Residencies
For Faculty: College Gallery Exhibitions

Application Forms:
Access Grant Application
Course Enhancement Application
Course Innovation or Renovation Application
Humanities Center Grant Application Form for Symposia, Talks or Readings (single or series), Performing Arts, Exhibitions, Film Screenings (single or series), Faculty Working Group, Summer Curricular Institutes, or Residency.
Dialogues on Art
The Humanities Center strives to connect in an integrated way with the academic program and encourages interdisciplinary and faculty collaboration. Faculty are recruited to participate in the Center’s “Dialogues on Art” series—through which participants – a small group of faculty and students from a wide variety of departments or majors - visit exhibitions, performances, or screenings of contemporary art in and around Philadelphia and then discuss the experience over dinner. The Center covers the travel, admission fees, and dinner.

The Center seeks to work in partnership with faculty and is open to faculty suggestions for programs, events, resources, and initiatives that deepen humanistic inquiry at Haverford.