UW-Madison will work to strengthen humanities education with the help of $20 million coming from a $10 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and matching funds from the state of Wisconsin.
The grant will be used to hire new faculty, including an endowed chair in ancient Greek philosophy. It will also be used to support graduate and postdoctoral students through a program that allows humanities students to participate in research, teaching and mentoring with senior faculty.
The grant will also free some graduate students from teaching assistant positions while writing their dissertations by funding approximately 65 two-year fellowships.
With approximately 23,000 students taking a humanities course each fall term, Chancellor Biddy Martin said the grant is critical to strengthen the widely used department.
""The ability to read and think critically, to handle complexity and to express ourselves effectively are critical to our freedom and our prosperity,"" Martin said at the grant's announcement.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a not-for-profit organization with over $4 billion in assets that gives grants for higher education institutions in the areas of scholarship, arts, culture and conservation and the environment.
