Expanding the Use of Digital Technology in the Humanities

Grinnell College and the University of Iowa have received a $1.6 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop humanities-centered collaborations that expand the use of digital technology among faculty and students.

This is the first time the Mellon Foundation has supported a collaborative digital project between a private liberal arts college and a public research university — institutions with different missions and strengths.

The project, titled “Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry,” will support increased integration of digital resources into the undergraduate curriculum at Grinnell and the University of Iowa over four years.

“This grant will enable us to build on the digital projects already under way at both schools to establish new communities of thought and practice,” says Erik Simpson, professor of English and principal investigator for the grant at Grinnell. “Teams involving faculty, staff, students, and community partners will be able to use digital tools to produce new forms of analysis, creativity, and critique that are fundamental to our disciplines.”

Through this initiative, faculty members in the humanities will build their digital skills, develop innovative new courses, and collaborate with students on ambitious digital projects and research programs.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for faculty to bring new, innovative approaches into their teaching and scholarship. The benefits for students will be transformative as well,” says Michael Latham, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the College. “As they use new technological resources to study the humanities, they will also develop greater digital literacy, gain valuable skills in collaborative writing and research, and create knowledge for broader public audiences. Those experiences will serve them well throughout their professional lives.”

Grinnell students already are developing digital literacy through research projects such as Mapping the Global Renaissance. Directed by Assistant Professor of English James Lee, this project applies “big data” techniques — natural language-processing algorithms, data mining, topic modeling, and mapping — to examine 50,000 early modern texts. By using these techniques to analyze early modern England’s representations of different people and their geographical contexts around the world, students acquire a better understanding of how race and racial differences were understood at that time.

Major activities to be funded by the grant include:

• Faculty development initiatives, such as summer institutes, collaborative projects between Grinnell and Iowa faculty, and training in digital liberal arts techniques.
• Undergraduate curricular development initiatives, such as adding new digital liberal arts courses or course modules, developing courses that bridge the two institutions, and supporting student-faculty collaborations.
• Engagement with the broader digital liberal arts community, including a conference to be held at the University of Iowa in 2018, support for conference travel to share exemplary digital projects and learn from the work of others, and a Web presence for the project that will feature an online inventory of digital projects.
• Support for library and instructional technology faculty and staff members who help make digital projects possible, including professional development funds as well as funding for software, digitization, and other research expenses.