Critical Inquiry into Values, Imagination and Culture (CIVIC)

Cornell is anticipating the launch of a number of strategic initiatives that seek to enhance our scholarship and teaching, and to give new impulses to the enthusiasm, collaboration, and sense of purpose surrounding research, teaching, and outreach that has characterized our academic community. Through these initiatives we seek to develop plans that will help shape the direction of interdisciplinary research and advance Cornell’s stature by attracting and retaining the most outstanding faculty and catalyzing their interactions. With its distinguished history of exemplary scholarship, practice and teaching, the humanities and the liberal and fine arts are central to these initiatives – and to the educational mission of the Cornell.

The Charge

The Task Force on the Humanities and Arts will address the following questions:

1. What are Cornell’s key strengths in the humanities and arts and how can we augment these for the future?
2. Are there “strategic enabling areas” in which Cornell should invest to enhance our scholarship and academic reputation?
3. Would a faculty hiring initiative that focuses on particular subject areas, themes and/or methods be beneficial in further distinguishing Cornell in the arts and humanities?
4. What infrastructure initiatives will enhance success?
5. Is the Society for the Humanities optimally configured to enhance interdisciplinary research in the humanities on this campus?
6. Are the departments and centers well configured to enhance the attractiveness and highlight the advantages of the study of the arts and humanities?
7. How might Cornell, through its teaching and scholarship, more effectively articulate the compelling benefits of a liberal arts education at a time in which science, technology and business appear to be so dominant in higher education?
8. Are there opportunities to better integrate the liberal arts and humanities with the practice-based performing, design and fine arts?
9. Are there interdisciplinary areas in the humanities and arts (such as media studies, digital humanities, inequality studies, or environmental studies) that would combine with and complement Cornell’s other strategic initiatives in data science, social sciences, sustainability, genome biology, or nanoscience?
10. What are the highest priority investments that would enhance the humanities and arts? Are there opportunities through collaborations that would increase the impact of current investments?
11. What changes in the curriculum, major requirements and general education courses in the arts and humanities might enhance their attractiveness and impact on Cornell undergraduates?

More Information

• May 2017 CIVIC proposal (PDF)

Resulting Initiatives

• Media Studies
• Public History