UConn Invests $10 Million in Support of Academic Vision
A new institute for brain and cognitive science and a humanities project exploring the barriers to meaningful public discourse are just two of the faculty-led initiatives the University of Connecticut is supporting through the allocation of nearly $10 million in grants.The three-year grants represent the first set of targeted school investments directly related to UConn’s new Academic Vision, which pursues excellence in five fundamental areas: undergraduate education, graduate study, teaching, engagement, and research.
The Public Discourse Project, also the recipient of a $1 million grant, will be overseen by UConn’s Humanities Institute in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Through the project, UConn faculty in the arts and humanities will explore ways to achieve meaningful public discourse in an increasingly divisive culture. Those involved with the project will look at the historical and sociological barriers that stymie productive social dialogue and, alternatively, the conditions that foster it. With anticipated additional funding from the John Templeton Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project is designed to establish UConn as an international leader in public and digital humanities research.
“The project aims not only to understand the sources of our cultural division, but to do something about it: to combine academic research and community engagement toward the goal of raising the level of discussion in the hope of strengthening democracy,” says philosophy professor Michael Lynch, director of the Humanities Institute.
