NHA offers virtual consultations with faculty and administrators at higher ed institutions on strengthening humanities departments and humanities centers and engaging students and communities through the humanities. Learn about the services we provide, several of which are free to member institutions.
Presentations on the State of the Field
(Included in Membership)
Based on our research into the humanities landscape in higher ed, members of our staff regularly present on strategies for recruiting students to the humanities, broadening access to humanistic study, trends in the public humanities, and documenting the impact of humanities projects. For students, we offer presentations on humanities career pathways grounded in the arguments and data found in our Study the Humanities Toolkit.
“Dr. Michelle May-Curry gave an excellent presentation to our inaugural cohort of Engaged Humanities Studio fellows. She worked closely with me to design a tailored presentation that introduced fellows to the range of publicly-engaged humanities projects taking place nationally; discussed key features of particularly successful projects; and identified broader trends and future directions.” – Dr. Katie Price, Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, Swarthmore College
Consultations
(Included in Membership)
We offer in-depth consultations on our areas of expertise, including recruiting students to the humanities, broadening access to humanistic study, trends in the public humanities, and documenting the impact of humanities projects. These are generally done with a small group of faculty members and/or administrators to support them in confronting the specific challenges to the humanities on their campuses or in scaling up innovative initiatives. Through these consultations, we identify strategies that fit their institutional context, goals, and constraints and share relevant models from other campuses.
Examples of consultations include:
- A consultation with humanities department chairs from a mid-sized university on the creation of a public humanities graduate certificate program
- A consultation with a dean of humanities and three department chairs at a large, public university about their ongoing recruitment efforts and additional strategies they might consider based on successful models from other campuses.
- A consultation with the project director of a humanities initiative about documenting the impact of their project, including review of their materials, feedback during a meeting, and sample research instruments we have developed.
“It was so very helpful, you have no idea! We are working on a plan to pilot some humanities initiatives to make the sorts of changes that make sense for us, based on the data/examples that you’ve provided. So, again thank you.” – Stephanie Patridge, Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator Liaison to the Arts and the Humanities, Otterbein University
Tailored Presentations and Workshops
These programs are tailored to the particular needs on a campus and grow out of a pre-meeting about specific challenges and/or goals related to engaging students in the humanities or bolstering the public humanities on campus. Tailored presentations bring to bear detailed models and strategies that align with the institution’s needs and constraints. Workshops are designed to help participants create action plans for envisioning and implementing new initiatives or documenting the impact of existing work. Tailored presentations and workshops can be developed for various groups on campus including humanities deans and department chairs; career services and admissions offices; and faculty or fellows involved in public humanities programs.
Examples of presentations and workshops:
- A workshop for a cohort of Mellon-funded public humanities faculty, students, and community partners to surface national examples of how to expand course-based public humanities projects outside the classroom.
- A workshop on how to harness the energy around an existing project to scale it up, building off models of similar projects.
- A presentation for humanities faculty, administrators, and department chairs at a large private university that delved into campus-specific goals and challenges in recruiting students to the humanities; introduced models of exemplary initiatives from peer institutions; and facilitated a collaborative effort to identify promising and viable models that might be adapted to the campus context.
“Thank you so much for speaking to our faculty today. It was PERFECT! … You touched on topics that resonated with the faculty who attended. I hope they will share the ideas we discussed with their colleagues, and I will encourage them to do so. Keep up the good work at NHA.” – Gerry Greenberg, Senior Associate Dean, Syracuse University
Impact Research Design and Execution
NHA regularly partners with higher ed institutions and community-based organizations to document the impact of humanities initiatives on participating students, faculty, and community members. These initiatives have ranged from a new undergraduate humanities course to internship programs to large-scale public humanities projects. We work closely with each partner to learn about their goals, determine the appropriate research method to employ, and design and implement a research instrument (e.g., surveys, focus groups, interviews).
We also work with humanities funders to develop tailored toolkits for their grantees to document the impact of their work.
We also leverage our experience as an advocacy organization to help our partners showcase the impact of their initiatives to campus-based administrators, community stakeholders, policy makers, and funders.
“Younger helped us to revise our instruments in our second year to gather more formative data and to better understand our program’s strengths and areas for improvement. Her advice about how to phrase and sequence questions was also very helpful. Finally, Younger shared several impact reports with us, models that helped us to write a strong interim report to our funder.” – Dr. Lisa Dush, Faculty Director, HumanitiesX, DePaul University
Contact Us
For inquiries about our consulting services, please email Beatrice Gurwitz, NHA Deputy Director.