Princeton University recently launched the Humanities Initiative, a three-year initiative that will highlight, strengthen, and expand humanities research, education, advocacy, and outreach at Princeton and establish the foundation for an eventual Humanities Institute on campus. As a set of academic disciplines, the humanities seek to understand human culture through the study of history, languages, religion, philosophy, literature, art, music, performance, and other forms of human expression. Humanistic methods such as close reading, critical thinking, understanding ideas in context, articulating and interrogating ideas, interpretation and analysis of texts and other cultural artifacts, and producing knowledge through creative work are fundamental to a liberal arts education, vital for understanding the past, and critical for addressing some of the most urgent and bracing issues and concerns of the present and future.
The Humanities Initiative will draw on the unsurpassed excellence of humanities research, teaching, and learning at Princeton to increase and amplify in a significant and substantial manner the capacity for humanistic work on campus and in the public sphere. This effort will follow several, interconnected paths:
1) The Humanities Initiative will facilitate and support a series of projects, programming, activities, and events focused on a theme, “Media and Meaning,” that will consider why and how media of different kinds—from oil painting to artificial intelligence—play an outsize role in imbuing the human world with meaning, often with sizable social, political, and economic consequences. Finish
2) The Humanities Initiative will sponsor innovative, interdisciplinary programming, faculty research and collaboration, and curricular development, including by supporting collaboration across Princeton’s academic divisions.
3) The Humanities Initiative will establish public humanities as a priority at Princeton. The initiative will foster public engagement with the humanities through partnerships with the greater Princeton community, including k-12 students at Princeton Public Schools, and through collaborations with a range of publics outside Princeton’s walls.
4) The Humanities Initiative will serve as the first step of an institutional transition from the Humanities Council to a Humanities Institute.
The Humanities Initiative is seeking an Executive Director (ED) to work closely with the Faculty Director of the initiative to establish and steward programs, engage in short-and long-term planning, execute strategic priorities, and oversee day-to-day operations. The initiative will evolve and grow rapidly over the next three years; the Faculty Director will establish the academic and intellectual direction of the Humanities Initiative, and the Executive Director will provide support for the Director’s vision, overseeing all management and budgetary matters and assisting in the recruitment and hiring of staff. The ED reports directly to the Faculty Director, with a secondary reporting relationship to the Director of Academic Administration.
The candidate must have the capacity to help develop and coordinate new, innovative, and high-profile programming, interdisciplinary initiatives, research collaborations, and public events, working with a range of partners from all three academic divisions at Princeton and partnering with various external organizations and institutions to create a substantial public humanities component. Additionally, the candidate must have the capacity to facilitate fundraising efforts; coordinate and execute grant writing; and cultivate marketing and branding strategies. The Executive Director will be able to represent the Director at meetings, present at programs, report results, and exchange information with University representatives and the broader University and Princeton community.
