- December 2023
“Like no other organization, ACLS is committed to supporting the full range of humanistic research projects, whether they address today’s wicked problems or illuminate questions far from our current concerns. We provide fellowships, travel grants, workshops, resources, and community for hundreds of scholars. Through competitions like our Open Access Book Prizes, Digital Justice Grants, and convenings of change-minded scholarly leaders, we work to ensure our fields have a robust voice in public dialogue and a strong position in our colleges, universities, and communities.”
- September 2023
“At ACLS, we aim not to “admire the problem,” as we sometimes say, but to develop concrete resources that meet people where they are. This year you will see us sharing models of what works to raise enrollments and public consciousness of the value of our fields; circulating blueprints of change for doctoral education and scholarly norms that make academia more responsive and welcoming; rewarding the publishing of books free and open to all; and building alliances across fields, transcending the borders of arts and science to embrace law, public health, architecture, environmental science, and other areas.”
- June 2023
“ACLS proudly supports a broad range of scholarship across fields, disciplines, and modes of production. We say “yes” to collaborative research and individual scholarship, publications that are digital and made of paper, textual commentaries and podcasts. We do all we can to stoke discussion of what counts in departments, divisions, and institutions, through our work with our member institutions and societies, and the programs I mentioned above. We see this as practical advocacy that rewards what scholars are doing and seek to do.”
- May 2023
“When I think of what form ACLS might take if it were an artwork, I find myself thinking once again of Anthony Caro. As a federation of societies and a host of networks, we comprise many different elements and initiatives, both bold and grounded, and we seek to find the right balance among them. A Caro sculpture also captures the dynamic tensions that characterize higher education today—and that we feel at ACLS as we go about our work. A more prosaic way of putting it is that we walk a number of different tightropes.”
- April 2023
“Here at ACLS we continue to talk about the ripple of responses generated by Nathan Heller’s February New Yorker article “The End of the English Major,” the most compelling of which, in my opinion, is Nathan Greenfield’s piece in University World News, featuring comments from Arizona State University Humanities Dean Jeffrey Cohen and Modern Language Association Executive Director Paula Krebs that highlight what Heller didn’t document. If you read or heard about the New Yorker essay, and even if you didn’t, this piece is worth your time. Cohen and Krebs would agree, I think, that the humanities and social sciences have a public relations problem.”
- March 2023
“ACLS advocates for the free exchange of knowledge about history and culture in places where it is under attack. We are committed to avoiding the defensive stance. Right now, we are developing a survey of success stories – examples of sustainable approaches to undergraduate teaching and research that enable humanistic study to flourish. These stories make the strongest arguments for the value of humanistic knowledge – and stand as the best reminders of why a college education should be an opportunity to experiment, reflect, and think critically. They resist the simple binary of career readiness versus passion/curiosity and show the necessity of humanistic study for understanding our rapidly evolving world.”
- February 2023
“In the very first State of the Union address in 1790, George Washington argued that knowledge is “the surest basis of public happiness” in a representative democracy, because “the sense of the community” drives the laws and policies of government. It is part of the tragedy and shame that is woven into American history that Washington did not recognize, let alone celebrate, the Black people who worked, as Margaret Burroughs says, “to build this country.” Our responsibility is to understand his failings so that we don’t repeat them in the name of false patriotism. To choose ignorance is to damage ourselves and the nation we want to build.”
- January 2023
“The start of the new year is the perfect time to trumpet the ACLS mission from the rooftops: to advance humanistic knowledge. That means securing funding for and managing our fellowship and grant programs, which support stellar scholars across dozens of fields, and advancing our assemblage of strategic initiatives: to help our member societies make the interpretive humanities and social sciences more equitable and welcoming to all; to accelerate progressive change in doctoral education and faculty advancement; to build lasting infrastructure for digital scholarship by and about underrepresented communities; and to prepare humanists to take leadership roles in their colleges and universities.”
