Wittenberg University project to empower participants to impact their communities gets grant award

Wittenberg University is taking steps to become the first liberal arts school in Ohio to offer a certificate program in health humanities and equity.

What’s happening: Wittenberg University has been awarded $135,482 from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The award comes for a special project that empowers students and community members to impact their hometowns in ethical and equitable ways — “The Healing Humanities: Creating Healthy Pathways on Campus and in the Community.” 

Why it’s important:  In addition to facilitating access to humanities-based teaching and learning, one of the project’s goals is to make Wittenberg the first liberal arts school in Ohio to offer a certificate program in health humanities and equity. The grant funding  “affirms the centrality of the humanities to our psychological and physical well-being — how it helps us understand what it means to be human and to be a human who cares for themselves and others,” Cynthia Richards, Veler Endowed Chair in English, who serves as the project director, says in a statement from the university.  Richards is joined by co-leaders Alejandra Gimenez-Berger, associate professor of art history, and Kimberly Creasap, director of Susan Hirt Hagen Center for Civic & Urban Engagement and adjunct professor of sociology.



What’s next: Pending approval by the Wittenberg faculty and Board of Directors, the health humanities certificate will support working professionals in the health care field. The funding will also support a rotating Health Humanities Fellowship for Wittenberg faculty to help the University build capacity for continued work in the field. It will also establish clear pathways to experiential learning opportunities with local community partners, including the Rocking Horse Center, the Clark County Combined Health District, the Springfield Promise Neighborhood, and the Springfield Museum of Art.

It’s rare:  A Community Advisory Group will be developed to advise on curriculum content and community partnerships and outreach, along with the creation of a minor in Health Humanities – a rare offering among liberal arts colleges, Wittenberg’s statement says. Pending final approval by the faculty and Board, the minor is expected to be offered in the fall of 2024 with the certificate program in place by the summer of 2025. Topics under consideration for both programs include narrative medicine, empathy, cross-cultural medicine, historical concepts of health and care, and skills such as critical thinking, ethical problem-solving, intellectual curiosity, narrative analysis, writing, responsive discussion, and reflection.

Lived human experience: Health Humanities is a steadily growing, cross-disciplinary field that draws on the humanities and arts to investigate aspects of lived human experience related to health and medicine. Health Humanities use methods such as reflection, contextualization, deep textual reading, and slow critical thinking to examine the human condition, the patient experience, the healer experience, and the intersections between the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and ethical aspects of receiving and providing healthcare throughout history.

What they’re saying: “The project reflects Wittenberg’s already well-established experiential learning infrastructure, all while promoting true collaboration and reciprocal relationships between Wittenberg and community leaders, both in the health care field and in the arts,” Richards says.

One of 260 projects: One of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States, the NEH is an independent federal agency created in 1965 that has awarded more than $5.6 billion for humanities projects through more than 64,000 grants since its creation. This latest round of funding at $33.8 million will support 260 humanities projects nationwide.

Source: Wittenberg University