UNC Asheville has been awarded a $700,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support an arts and educational alliance focused on public humanities and community engagement.
The four-year project titled, “UNC Asheville: Leading the Public Arts and Humanities in the City of Asheville,” has four primary goals:
- To enrich the partnership with the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC)
- To further initiatives in Afrilachia, uncovering what has been the largely undocumented influence of African Americans on the culture and social fabric of Western North Carolina
- To simulate new partnerships with local community colleges and educational institutions in order to broaden awareness of and participation in the Humanities Program through the creation of new Humanities Readers and the establishment of an Affiliates and Fellows Program in Humanities
- To create models for the public liberal arts and humanities through programing at the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship and UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio, and to foster and create partnerships with The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design
“Under the leadership of Chancellor Mary K. Grant, UNC Asheville has strengthened its ties with academic and cultural institutions in the surrounding community. This grant will help UNC Asheville further cultivate relationships with historic colleges and arts organizations in Western North Carolina, developing an alliance that promises to contribute significantly to the region in cultural, academic, and economic terms,” said Cristle Collins Judd, senior program officer at the Mellon Foundation.