Walt Hunter | Photo by Angelo Merendino
It’s common for Walt Hunter, PhD, to find his students immersed in classic works by Virginia Woolf or Toni Morrison—even as they’re diving into the complexities of quantum physics or experimenting with artificial intelligence.
“There is a unique kind of interdisciplinary learning and experimentation that thrives here,” said Hunter, chair of the Department of English since joining Case Western Reserve University in 2022. “It’s one of the first things I noticed.”
That’s why Hunter and other humanities faculty are writing a new chapter on campus. They’re championing their core disciplines while exploring ways to integrate STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields into the mix.
And that’s precisely what students want.
Increasingly, undergraduates are pursuing humanities majors and minors while taking courses in STEM fields. They recognize that “it’s not a tradeoff between the expressive magic of creative writing and the analytical grace of computation,” said Hunter, a poet and a contributing editor at The Atlantic magazine. “We encourage you to do both. That’s core to our vision of how humanities thrive.”
For years, humanities enrollments and degrees declined nationally. But, more recently, universities have seen an uptick in arts and humanities majors as students realize the benefits of programs that help them make sense of the world and nurture their critical-thinking and communications skills.
At CWRU, the College of Arts and Sciences is cultivating an energetic intellectual atmosphere—exploring new areas of study and expanding paths for earning degrees and funding for student and faculty conducting interdisciplinary research and projects. The college has also launched several innovative “public humanities” programs to integrate disciplines from art history to philosophy into civic engagement projects that advance social justice through community collaborations.
“There are national trends, and there is what is happening here,” said Interim Dean Lee Thompson, PhD. “Every day, we are getting creative to not only keep the humanities alive, but also to add to their value and role in a contemporary society and changing world.”
The effectiveness of the college’s evolving focus and recent endeavors will also be gauged by metrics such as student enrollment, research outcomes, publications, grants—and the career paths of graduates, Thompson said.
“Employers tell us they need graduates with a strong humanities foundation—intellectual curiosity, writing and communication, critical thinking, empathy and an appreciation of diverse perspectives,” said Thompson, also a professor of psychological sciences. “Our college is so well- tailored to meet that need.”
Michele Tracy Berger | Photo by Roger Mastroianni
Hunter likes to say the humanities “are in the business of changing people’s lives.” And the university is doing precisely that, both on campus and off.
Its Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, launched in 1996 through the leadership of the Nord family, is woven into the fabric of the community with an endowed speaker series, faculty and graduate-student talks on their works-in-progress and a broad range of events. Over the years, the Nord family has helped to advance the Baker-Nord Center’s highly regarded work.
“The Baker-Nord Center is public-facing,” said center Director Michele Tracy Berger, PhD, who joined the university last year and is the Eric and Jane Nord Family Professor in the Department of Religious Studies. “We are an intellectual and social hub for amplifying the arts and humanities at the university and broader community.”
She’s now leading efforts to expand the reach of the annual Cleveland Humanities Festival, which the center organizes in collaboration with partners from diverse communities and organizations regionwide.
This year’s festival, which began in March, is exploring the multifaceted concept of awe across cultures and time periods—examining its role in art, belief systems, politics, biology and ecology, and questioning its universality and evolutionary significance. “It aligns so brilliantly, both with humanities and with the sciences,” Berger said. “There’s no better time for higher education to be bold, engaged and courageous in how we show the value of the humanities.”
In the past year, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation has awarded $3.5 million in grants to the university to create a new area of study bringing together humanities and STEM fields.
Known as “Experimental Humanities,” the initiative comes in response to a rising need for a more seamless integration of these fields, Thompson said.
In the past five years, students double majoring across the two areas increased by nearly 20%.
“We can adapt to changing educational needs and trends to truly integrate fields, while preserving core values essential to the humanities,” Thompson said. “As a major research university, we’re all too eager to explore new territory.”
CWRU Professor Timothy Beal (center) with, from left, Aidan Bugayong, Amber Tilling-Richards and Shreya Girish, students who are among the inaugural Mandeln Undergraduate Fellows in the university’s Experimental Humanities program to integrate humanities and STEM fields. | Photo by Matt Shiffler
As Catherine Merrill navigates her first year at Case Western Reserve, she’s considered how artificial intelligence (AI) may disrupt the careers she and fellow students will enter.
“It’s crucial for young people to understand the inevitable integration of AI into almost everything, including medicine,” said Merrill, who aspires to be a physician.
This spring, the college introduced a new course—“Responsible AI: Cultivating a Just and Sustainable Socio-technical Future through Data Citizenship”— and Merrill seized the opportunity to enroll.
“I want to understand how to use it responsibly,” she said.
Created and co-taught by Timothy Beal, PhD, a Distinguished University Professor in the college and Michael Hemenway, PhD, a research fellow, the class was incubated over a two-year period as part of a project involving 14 colleges and universities led by the National Humanities Center and sponsored by Google.
While each participating institution is offering its own unique course, the common goal is to help college students become literate in AI, machine- learning and coding to foster engagement with emerging technologies and their ethical implications.
“Together we’re considering the bigger philosophical and ethical questions these students will help answer in their lives and careers.” —CWRU Professor Timothy Beal
The CWRU course emphasizes concepts such as “data justice” and “responsible AI,” which address bias, discrimination and fairness issues inherent in datasets and models. The class has drawn students from across the university.
“Together we’re considering the bigger philosophical and ethical questions these students will help answer in their lives and careers,” said Beal, the Florence Harkness Professor of Religion.
Students Amber Smith and Jose Fontanez | Photo by Matt Shiffler
By his own account, Jose Fontanez’s first attempt to secure an undergraduate degree was ill-fated. “I struggled to engage because I was preoccupied with family issues that were beyond my control,” said the 39-year-old native Clevelander.
Years later, he returned to his education as an adult with a stable home environment and “found out that not only was I not a poor student, but I was actually an excellent student,” Fontanez said.
What transformed his achievements and self-esteem as a learner was the Cleveland Humanities Collaborative (CHC). The often life-changing program provides a path for qualified students from Cleveland-area community colleges to transfer to Case Western Reserve to earn a bachelor’s degree in a humanities discipline.
“I never thought a Case [Western Reserve] degree would be within my reach,” said Fontanez, who earned an associate’s degree at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) and is now a junior at CWRU pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English and teaching licensure in Integrated Language Arts.
He aims to be a high school English teacher and seek a graduate degree in educational administration. “I hope my journey is an example to people who think going to college is impossible,” Fontanez said.
Since CHC’s establishment in 2014 with a grant from the Mellon Foundation, 47 students have enrolled at CWRU as part of the program. More than 70% have graduated or are earning their bachelor’s degrees. The foundation recently approved a third round of funding, which will increase the emphasis on career pathways.
“By creating possibilities in the humanities, the opportunity has been transformative for our students,” said Kurt Koenigsberger, PhD, an associate professor of English and co-director of the CHC with Brian Clites, PhD, an assistant professor and the Archbishop Hallinan Professor of Catholic Studies II, and associate director Lisa Nielson, PhD, an Anisfield-Wolf SAGES Fellow at the university. “When we clearly show students how they can use their talents professionally, they’re more willing to invest in the humanities.”
That vision drew Amber Smith to study French, first at Tri-C and then CWRU, while working closely with CHC’s mentors and academic advisors.
“As a non-traditional student, I know the program understands where I’m coming from and what I need to succeed,” said Smith, a senior in her mid-30s. “That’s given me a greater sense of purpose and confidence to explore possibilities.”
As graduation approaches, Smith is leaning toward a career in education, attributing CHC’s support network and peer community with providing “the college experience I missed out on, but richer and more productive. I feel a responsibility to make the most of this chance.”
From left: Dance Lecturer Dani Dowler (CWR ‘12; GRS ‘14, contemporary dance) and Katherine Averill, a graduate student, in Joel Linebach’s Kinetic Echoes. | Photo by Brad Petot
In her first year as director of the Baker-Nord Center, Michele Tracy Berger has prioritized nurturing the campus academic community, collaborations and public programming, and securing more funding to make faculty and student projects possible.
“Scholars have historically been trained to hyper- specialize, leading to disciplinary silos,” Berger said. “We’re aiming to unlock the possibilities of scholars and students—that’s when academic renewal happens.”
The center recently awarded a “flash grant” to Jue Liang, PhD, an assistant professor of religious studies, to create a course for the Fall 2024 semester: “Ghosts, Zombies and Monsters: What We Fear and Loathe in Religions.”
Flash grants represent a new funding mechanism to create synergy with Baker-Nord Center themed programming and the Cleveland Humanities Festival.
For Liang, the grant provides the chance to collaborate with a master’s degree student to creatively explore and develop the course.
“Ghosts, zombies and monsters are known by different names but are a part of many religious traditions and life,” said Liang, who studies Buddhism, gender and vernacular religion. “Yet they’re underexplored, especially in academic studies.”
Joel K. Linebach used a Graduate Student Research Grant he received from the center to choreograph “Kinetic Echoes,” a contemporary dance piece exploring the interplay of movement and sound with wearable technology.
Linebach (CWR ’21; GRS ’22, macromolecular science) has long pursued a dual arts and engineering path and is now earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in contemporary dance and a PhD in macromolecular science and engineering.
“I want to show that dance can be enhanced by modern tools while preserving the integrity of the artform,” he said. “This grant opened the door.”
Programs that Celebrate the Humanities
Many programs at the College of Arts and Sciences are designed to support humanities scholars and scholarship. Here are just a few:
The Cleveland Humanities Festival is coordinated by the university’s Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities and is a collaboration of Northeast Ohio area arts, cultural and educational organizations. AWE is the theme of the spring 2024 festival.
Experimental Humanities is a new CWRU program established with funding from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation. It will include a new major that integrates humanities and STEM fields.
Humanities@Work provides humanities students the opportunity to learn new skills through paid short-term internships, many of them donor funded. Students have held internships at many public, private and nonprofit organizations including Cleveland City Council, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and KeyBank.
Humanities in Leadership Learning Series (HILLS), funded by the Mellon Foundation, develops academic leadership potential among arts and humanities scholars through seminars, discussions and administrative experiences.
h.lab, short for humanities lab, offers students and scholars access to leading-edge computational tools for experimentation and research. The initiative aims to drive tech innovation in the humanities while investigating ethical implications.
Public Humanities and Civic Engagement certificate creates more humanities-focused civic engagement that combines scholarship, teaching and projects with community organizations.