GSU’s Student Innovation Fellowship program and the departments of English and History have just been awarded a Next Generation Humanities PhD grant from the NEH designed to transform the culture of graduate education in the humanities and substantially broaden the career prospects of PhD recipients in the humanities. Project co-directors Brennan Collins (Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning), Denise Davidson (Dept. of History), and Dylan Ruediger (Dept. of History) will coordinate a year of intensive planning involving GSU alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators, as well as representatives from Atlanta’s arts & business communities to re-imagine the purpose, scope, and outcomes of GSU’s PhD programs in the humanities. One of 28 universities across the country to receive $25,000 in NEH funding, the project will connect GSU’s graduate programs in History and English, the high tech research projects of the Student Innovation Fellowship Program, and Atlanta’s booming creative economy.

Earlier this summer, the History Department received a similar grant aimed at fostering career diversity for its graduate students from the American Historical Association. Together, the two grants highlight considerable national recognition for GSU’s ongoing efforts to build new models for the education of humanists.