Kentucky Humanities Consortium

The Humanities as the Common Wealth of Kentucky: CCHS establishes the first consortium of humanities centers and departments across Kentucky’s public universities

Mary P. Sheridan, Director of CCHS, Pamela Beattie and Simona Bertacco from the Department of Comparative Humanities have been awarded a Membership Activity Fund Grant by the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (https://chcinetwork.org/about) in support of their proposal to establish a consortium of humanities centers and departments across Kentucky’s public universities. 

The consortium, called The Humanities as the Common Wealth of Kentucky (HCWK), is the first attempt to coordinate efforts across Kentucky’s state universities, and U of L’s CCHS is one of six recipients around the world with Amherst College, the National University of Australia, and the University of Western Cape in South Africa among the others.

HCWK represents a collaborative initiative to highlight at the national and global level the regional humanities culture of Kentucky, to change the narrative about the value of the arts and humanities in public higher education, and to show how our public universities act as important liaisons between the humanities disciplines and the needs of our communities.

The grant will fund a two-day workshop on June 6 and 7, 2024, on our campus, during which humanities educators from Kentucky’s state universities will meet to develop a model for collaborative programming and more effective communication about successful projects and initiatives for the public good. The workshop will establish a working group for a joint grant proposal that will support the future initiatives of the consortium.