National Endowment for the Humanities grant to lay foundation for Digital Humanities Center
Hanover College has received a Spotlight on Humanities in Higher Education grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Through the grant, Hanover will lay the foundation for the creation of a Center for Digital Humanities to support the integration of digital resources into the liberal arts curriculum.
The Spotlight on Humanities in Higher Education initiative is part of NEH’s decades-long support of the humanities across the nation. The Spotlight grant was created to support the exploration and development of small projects that benefit underserved populations through the teaching and study of the humanities at small-to-medium-sized colleges and universities.
“We’re excited about the opportunities that the Center for Digital Humanities will open up,” said Paul Battles, professor of English, who will serve as co-director of the project. “It will support faculty in their research and in the classroom, where we want our students to both be savvy in using digital tools and also to think broadly about the impact that this technology will have going forward.”
The Spotlight grant allows Hanover to begin development of this important on-campus resource. The eventual Center will provide ongoing support for faculty to integrate digital humanities into their courses and curriculum, incorporating an endless array of issues and endeavors such as the uses and ethics of generative artificial intelligence (AI), creating interactive maps and timelines, visualizing social media “friends” networks and curating online exhibits. The Center will develop training and resources for both faculty and students for the usage of digital humanities tools and support collaborations between campus and community partners to benefit the College’s rural community.
“The Center will complement our diversity of education approaches and help our faculty to make their digital projects that need complex support a reality,” said co-director Alejandra Juno Rodríguez Villar, associate professor of Spanish. “This will also help our faculty design and develop digital projects with the collaboration of their students, grow their digital projects already in place or help turn conventional research into a digital format.”
Hanover’s grant was part of $1.1 million in Spotlight funding and one of just 22 successful proposals among 94 applicants nationally. The successful application marks the College’s most recent NEH-backed initiative. In 2011, NEH awarded Hanover funding to support the “Picturing America” workshop to encourage elementary and secondary school teachers to use American art to tell the nation’s story.
About the National Endowment for the Humanities
Born from President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act in 1965, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was created as an independent federal agency and stands as one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the U.S. Each year, NEH awards grants for top-rated proposals examined by panels of independent, external reviewers. This year, the agency provided $26.3 million in grants to support 238 projects across the nation, widely varying from exhibitions and sustainability projects at museums and archives to podcasts, documentaries and television programs to scholarly research, fellowships and humanities councils.
