Humanities Center Promotes Action Against Systemic Racism on Campus

Geleve Grice

Photo of Silas Hunt, the first African-American to attend a major university in the American South, 1948

The Steering Committee of the University of Arkansas Humanities Center has approved two grant competitions for fall 2020, funding humanities research and programming to move from words to action in the effort to reveal and dismantle systemic racism at the University of Arkansas. 

The "Confronting Our Past/Interrogating Our Present Research Grants" will support humanities research by undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty into systemic racism, past and present, at the University of Arkansas. The selection committee will award up to $12,000 -- four grants for undergraduates, four for graduate students, and four for faculty (of all ranks) at $1,000 each. Because research travel is currently prohibited, funds can be used for research materials, equipment, or other approved, research-related expenses. Successful applications will detail a research product for either scholarly or public forums.  

The "Diversifying Research and Curriculum Grants" will provide co-sponsorships of up to $2,000 for research or teaching workshops on including anti-racist content, theory, and practice in humanities scholarship, as well as creating diverse and inclusive humanities curriculum. The total amount promised is $4,000 in this effort. Workshops should include online content and delivery. Priority will be given to programs or projects that cross disciplinary constituencies, serve across communities of students, faculty, staff, and the region, and promote the core research mission of the Center. 

Full proposal information is available at the center's website. Review of applications for both competitions will begin Sept. 15. 

The Arkansas Humanities Center defines humanities research according to the parameters set up by the 1965 National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, "The term 'humanities' includes, but is not limited to, the study and interpretation of the following: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of the social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life."

For further information, please contact the UAHC Director Tricia Starks, Associate Director Lissette Lopez Szwydky-Davis, or a member of the UAHC steering committee:

• Sean P. Connors – Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Casey Lee Kayser – Department of English
• Violeta Lorenzo-Feliciano – Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures
• Amanda Kathleen McMullen – Department of Philosophy, starting fall 2020
• Charles E. Muntz – Department of History
• Ram Natarajan – Department of Anthropology
• Niketa S. Reed – School of Journalism and Strategic Media
• John Stanly Walch – Department of Theatre
• Ron Warren Jr. – Department of Communication