Intentional Design for an Equitable Academy

The Intentional Design for an Equitable Academy (IDEA) unit draws on human-centered design as a methodology for developing activities and convenings where we can re-envision academia’s culture, policies, and practices. The unit includes the ACLS Digital Justice Grant Program, the Intention Foundry (IF), the Leadership Institute for a New Academy (LINA), and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program. ACLS takes this moment as a call to cultivate opportunities for reparative intervention and transformative engagement that further ACLS efforts to enhance equity, justice, and well-being in the academy.

ACLS has a long history of convening scholars, administrators, learned society directors, leaders of national and international academies, and public figures to share ideas and solve problems. As outlined in our Strategic Priorities, ACLS seeks action on major challenges facing humanistic studies and continues to expand our capacity to serve as a key resource for societies, scholars, and administrators, with a focus on students and scholars who have not historically had a seat at the table in discussions about institutional change.

The core aims of IDEA include:

• Broaden the range of scholarly perspectives in American academia
• Improve and strengthen academic culture and infrastructure by encouraging forward-looking practices and structures
• Support projects and fields of study facing underinvestment in the academy
• Make scholarship in the humanities and social sciences more accessible to the public