Global Arts + Humanities DISCOVERY THEME PLAN
Prepared by Wendy S. Hesford and Puja Batra-Wells
Designed
and edited
by Breanne LeJeune
Created in 2019 • Updated in 2024
Emergence Collaboration Transformation
ONE Global Arts + Humanities will build 12 intellectual community across the university through cross-disciplinary research collaborations
TWO Global Arts + Humanities will deepen 16 student engagement in the arts and humanities through cross-disciplinary research, experiential learning and professional development opportunities
THREE Global Arts + Humanities will strengthen 20 the university’s capacity for transformative, community-engaged partnerships through creative and humanistic methods and practices
FOUR Global Arts + Humanities will increase 22 Ohio State’s national recognition as a leading land-grant institution and its distinction for excellence in integrated arts and humanities through cross-disciplinary collaborations
The Global Arts + Humanities supports integrated arts and humanities by fostering collaborations between different disciplinary domains, between the global and the local, between the academic and experiential, and between campus and community — opening up new understandings across difference.
Laura “LROD” Rodriquez (MFA, Dance) who led the Día de los Muertos procession from the Gateway Film Center to Sullivant Hall, performs for a crowd near High Street. October 19, 2019.
CONTEXT
Across the nation, universities are contemplating how to provide an education that is global and interdisciplinary — one that promotes community-engagement and advances democracy in an increasingly diverse and changing world. Higher education in the twenty-first century presents complex challenges and opportunities for transformation. Higher education for the twenty-first century requires a deep investment in core disciplinary competencies as well as an increased emphasis on cross-disciplinary collaborations.
We face critical societal challenges of great consequence and complexity. The arts and humanities have a vital role to play in confronting these challenges — building from strong foundations in disciplinary expertise, accentuating new understandings and imaginaries, and translating knowledge into solutions for social impact.
Indeterminate in scope and scale, critical societal challenges not only require attention to global systems but to local cultures and histories, and they therefore compel a shift from crisis-based thinking to contextual thinking. The critical in “critical societal challenges” can mean urgent, pressing or necessary — but it also points to a methodological orientation.
Emergent challenges — multi-causal, multidimensional and resistant to singular solutions — push the boundaries of disciplinary understanding and call for cross-disciplinary collaborations and multifaceted solutions. The construct of solutions is but one framework for creative and humanistic orientations. Solutions to complex problems can only be transformative if they attend to a diversity of perspectives, practices and methods. This includes the recognition that methods themselves are informed by cultural histories and embodiments. In this sense, solutions are iterative and context driven. Creative and critical humanistic modes of inquiry and discovery help us to better understand these histories and their present formations. They shape how we see the world around us, how we conceptualize and categorize knowledge and how we live and adapt.
As a leading land-grant institution of the twenty-first century, The Ohio State University has a vital role to play in fostering cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural understanding essential to a healthy deliberative democracy and imagining a more sustainable future. The university’s investment in research and creative practices that provide insight into the human dimensions of these critical societal challenges is more important now than ever.
Integrated arts and humanities methods and practices provide indispensable tools for understanding our place in the world — methods that forefront deep observation, listening and empathy, and skills to communicate diverse viewpoints and imaginative possibilities. These tools include creative action, contextualization, representation
and synthesis — modes of inquiry that account for our relations, interdependencies and interconnections. Significantly, they cultivate the compassion that drives positive change on local and global scales.
Ohio State’s strategic plan, Time and Change, signals a commitment to cross-disciplinary research and creative expression as drivers of “significant advances for critical societal challenges.” Building on Ohio State’s strengths in discipline-specific fields and integrated disciplines, Global Arts + Humanities advances intellectual community and capacity across the university through cross-disciplinary collaborations. These collaborations help to shift institutional culture away from siloed thinking and toward reaffirming the translational aspects of creative and humanistic inquiry.
More than ever, we see the urgent need for integrated arts and humanities research and creative practices to apply qualitative as well as quantitative methods to understand and respond to critical societal challenges. By breaking down barriers to meaningful collaboration, Global Arts + Humanities is uniquely positioned to become a national leader in demonstrating the transformative power of cross-disciplinary collaborations that amplify creative and humanistic modes of inquiry and discovery.
CAPTION Keynote speaker Becca Heller (left) and Associate Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries (right, History) hold a discussion following Heller’s address, “Refugee Rights at a Crossroads.” October 17, 2019.
Wendy S. Hesford Faculty Director
“Critical societal challenges are portals to the past, present and future. Crossdisciplinary arts and humanities help us to understand these contexts, envision imaginiative possibilities and translate knowledge into solutions for social impact.”
MISSION
The Global Arts + Humanities is the gateway to cross-disciplinary research at The Ohio State University. It invests in creative and humanistic approaches to critical societal challenges and solutions.
VISION
The Global Arts + Humanities establishes Ohio State as a national leader in the integrated arts and humanities.
Bringing a global focus to the university’s motto, “education for citizenship,” the Global Arts + Humanities transforms research culture by fostering collaboration between disciplinary domains, between the global and the local, between the academic and experiential, and between campus and community.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
2015-2016
Established by the Office of Academic Affairs in 2015, the founding vision for the Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme was to integrate the arts and humanities in a shared focus on societal challenges and to support programming as well as faculty hires — with cost sharing from colleges that would support this purpose. Distinct from other Discovery Themes, the Global Arts + Humanities was defined not solely as a hiring initiative, but rather as one that would support cross-disciplinary programming and faculty research. $2.5 million in annual-rate funding and another $2.5 million in one-time cash supports these efforts.
Guided by the innovative work of four faculty fellows — the Discovery Theme entered the first phase of the strategic-planning process. This phase included a call for cross-disciplinary proposals from faculty in the Division of the Arts and Humanities for two-year pilot projects that emphasized the human dimensions of pressing concerns and challenges.
2017
Building on the 11 funded pilot projects (with expenditures of $1.1 million) — Lead Dean Peter Hahn invited faculty to submit proposals that expanded the scope and scale. A faculty steering committee reviewed all proposals and recommended the Migration, Mobility and Immobility Project as the first area for investment. Faculty hiring was part of this investment. In consultation with leadership (a newly-formed advisory committee, new faculty director and lead dean), two additional scaledup proposals — Livable Futures and the Public Narrative Collaborative — were identified as meriting investment.
2018
The Global Arts + Humanities underwent an external review, which reaffirmed the need for greater faculty participation and transparency in the development of the initiative. Recommendations from the external reviewers, faculty working groups and division-wide faculty retreat (April 2018) aided in the refinement of the initiative’s mission, vision and core-goals. After extensive faculty consultations, the initiative’s leadership and advisory committee identified three additional areas for future investment: Community, Livability, and the Methods and Practices Amplifier. (The first focus area was renamed Im/Mobility to account for situations of immobility that people experience stemming from social, cultural, political, environmental and economic factors.)
Several new grants programs, informed by these focus areas, were developed, including Arts Creation, Community Engagement, Discovery Field Schools, Mobile Methods, and Graduate Team Fellowships, among others. Focus areas and grants opportunities organized around critical societal challenges helped to facilitate collaborations and formation of cross-disciplinary research communities.
2019
The Global Arts + Humanities participated in a strategic plan review spearheaded by the Office of Academic Affairs. The review process built awareness of the program across the university, communicated impact and future plans to key stakeholders, and solicited feedback that was incorporated into the strategic plan. Reviewers included administrators and faculty from across the university and yielded a rigorous audit of opportunities and barriers as part of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, including administrative structures that encumber collaboration across departments and performance metrics that do not sufficiently account for cross-disciplinary collaborations.
The review also spotlighted the initiative’s efforts in building institutional capacity for faculty-led collaborative research through robust grants and fellowships programs and praised its focus on the arts and humanities as modes of inquiry and discovery, and its development of mentoring protocols and qualitative performance and assessment metrics.
In line with the University’s strategic directives, the review also noted the initiative’s commitment to ethical resource management and stewardship. For example, research allocations rely on criteria including mission alignment, project efficacy, embeddedness in institutional ecology, qualitative leadership and diversity.
In response to this review, GAH heightened the impact of its portfolio of grant programs by leveraging and amplifying programs run by existing university centers and entities (including the development of Center and Institute Grants) and cost sharing (with the Office of Research and Office of Diversity and Inclusion), while also seeding new and innovative cross-disciplinary research opportunities. Subsequent consultations with leadership and faculty about the 2019 strategic plan and accomplishments also pointed to the need for the development of additional resources to support existing interdisciplinary programs as well as individual faculty research within a multidisciplinary context.
2020-21
Throughout the 2020-21 academic year, Global Arts + Humanities conducted an internal review process to refine its 2019 strategic plan based on an assessment of achievements, current programming, and investment priorities. This multi-year strategic planning and review process yielded four key strategic goals that guide the activity of the Global Arts + Humanities and its commitment to cross-disciplinary research, teaching and learning, community engagement, and professional development opportunities that enact these goals.
The Global Arts + Humanities launched its signature Society of Fellows Program, which brings faculty across the disciplines together to explore a common theme. In addition to increased support for individual faculty, the Society of Fellows supports individual student research and creative productions. This included the development of Innovative Intervention rapid response grants to support faculty-led research and creative practices that facilitate arts and humanities critical engagement with the challenges that COVID-19 has made visible, including pandemic related disparities.
In 2020-21, Global Arts + Humanities launched its second signature program, K-12 Interdisciplinary Teaching Institute, which seeks to develop new partnerships with the public schools. The program highlights multidisciplinary approaches to critical societal challenges and provide teachers with different lenses through which they and their students can interrogate complex subjects.
2022-2024
In 2022, GAH launched its Imagine Futures: Graduate Professional Development program, which leveraged integrated arts and humanities to empower graduate students and their mentors to imagine and pursue diverse career paths.
In 2022, GAH launched a new book series in collaboration with the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Ohio State University Press entitled On Possibility: Social Change and the Arts + Humanities – which aligns with the annual theme of the Society of Fellows. This series harnesses the energy of cross-disciplinary collaborations by generating a space for productive alignments, intersections, contrasts and critiques across the arts, humanities, and humanistic social sciences.
Finally, we are developing new qualitative assessment frameworks and tools that enable us to capture the value, diversity and social impact of integrated arts and humanities research and creative practices. Among the impact tools is a digital platform developed in collaboration with the Department of Design, and a pedagogical tool called CollabORATE, developed with faculty from Departments of Art, Dance, English and History, that helps cross-disciplinary teams lay the groundwork for successful collaborations.
GOALS
Goal One Global Arts + Humanities will build intellectual community across the university through cross-disciplinary research collaborations
Goal Two Global Arts + Humanities will deepen student engagement in the arts and humanities through cross-disciplinary research, experiential learning and professional development opportunities
Goal Three Global Arts + Humanities will strengthen the university’s capacity for transformative, community-engaged partnerships through creative and humanistic methods and practices
Goal Four Global Arts + Humanities will increase Ohio State’s national recognition as a leading land-grant institution and distinction of excellence in integrated arts and humanities through cross-disciplinary collaborations
The remainder of this document reviews these four goals and the strategies that advance their development and implementation.
Students perform for “How Movement Moves: Dancing Across Borders, from West Africa to the Americas.” This event showcased an innovative community collaboration between Dance Brazil (a faculty-led undergraduate dance tour to Brazil) and Suzan Bradford Kounta (artistic director of the Thiossane Institute and director of the Lincoln Theatre). October 19, 2019.
Pilot projects
TIMELINE
Faculty-driven areas of investment
2015 Provost announces Discovery Theme in liberal arts
2016 OAA awards $1.1M non-recurring cash grant to ASC Division of the Arts and Humanities
2016 Eleven two-year pilot projects funded
2017 Migration, Mobility and Immobility Project selected for ongoing investment
2018 Faculty director appointed
2018 Strategic planning process begins
2018 Faculty advisory committee formed
2018 Two additional pilot projects, Livable Futures and Public Narrative Collaborative, chosen for investment
2018 Discovery Theme external program review
2018 Program manager hired
2018 Division-wide faculty retreat identifies four areas of research inquiry: Im/Mobility, Methods and Practices, Livability, and Community
2018 Launch of Arts Creation and Discovery Field School grants and Graduate Team Fellows program
2019 Program coordinator hired
2019 Strategic plan approved by OAA
2019 Launch of two special initiative grants: Indigenous Arts and Humanities; and Race, Ethnicity and Social Justice
TIMELINE
Building distinction + capacity
2018— GAHDT faculty cluster hiring program
2020 Three faculty fellows appointed to lead strategic development and Methods Amplifier
2020 K-12 Teaching Institute launched
2020 Society of Fellows Program launched
2020 Development of Innovative Interventions Grants Program for COVID-19
2020 Matching Grants on Racial Justice announced
2020 Inception of cross-disciplinary assessment and impact tools
2021 Graduate Professional Development Program launched
Developing sustainable partnerships
2021 Launch of book series, On Possibility: Social Change and the Arts and Humanities, with the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Ohio State University Press
2022 Launch of Imagined Futures Initiative with Office of Career Diversity
2022 Launch of new K-12 Teaching Institute community of practice with the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center and Sustainability Institute
2023 Programming with OPEEP
2024 Large grant collaborations with the College of Arts and Sciences Office of Engagement and Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts
MOVING SUBJECTS WEEK
Associate Professors Theodora Dragostinova (center left, History) and Michelle Wibbelsman (center right, SPPO) pose in the crowd at the opening reception of Moving Subjects Week, “ A Celebration of Indigenous People’s Day.” The reception included pieces from the national exhibit of Andean and Amazonian Cultural Artifacts (The Hidden Life of Things) and an exhibition of Potawatami basketry. October 14, 2019.
In October 2019, the Migration, Mobility and Immobility project organized Moving Subjects Week — a series of events that began with a celebration of Indigenous People’s Day and included music and dance performances, talks, book readings and a student forum. The week culminated with a Día de los Muertos procession and community gathering. The keynote address, “Refugee Rights at a Crossroads,” was given by Becca Heller — founder and co-director of the International Refugee Assistance Project and MacArthur Genius Award Recipient.
The photographs spotlighted in this strategic plan have been curated from this week of events, which is an exemplar of Global Arts + Humanities funded projects.
GOAL
ONE
Global Arts + Humanities will build intellectual community across the university through crossdisciplinary research collaborations
Traditional disciplinary structures and performance review processes often do not provide an adequate infrastructure to support crossdisciplinary inquiry and creation that cut across and connect previously-separated disciplinary domains. Global Arts + Humanities provides leadership and leverages existing strengths in order to build intellectual community and capacity for cross-disciplinary collaborations increasing Ohio State’s national recognition and distinction.
1:1 | Cross-Disciplinary Interventions
Cross-disciplinary interventions provide opportunities for arts and humanities researchers and practitioners to bring the insights and methods of their fields to facilitate engagement with and new solutions to critical societal challenges. To strengthen research networks across the university — and between the university and the community — Global Arts + Humanities has identified areas that typify twenty-first century local and global challenges and opportunities.
These are both content areas and heuristics for seeding crossdisciplinary collaborations. These areas include the multifaceted aspects of migration, movement and immobility which stem from socio-economic factors. The initiative also amplifies methodological exchanges that showcase the integration of arts and humanities modes of inquiry and discovery, including community-engaged research and creative practices.
1:2 | Cross-Disciplinary Communities
Cross-disciplinary communities provide meaningful structural and material support for engaged and inclusive research.
The Society of Fellows Program brings researchers and practitioners from across the disciplines together to share research around an annual theme that is transnational and trans-historical in scope. This signature program — which is comprised of Ohio State faculty fellows, external faculty fellows, Graduate Team Fellows and Undergraduate Research Apprentices (learn more about these student programs on pages 17-18). The Society of Fellows inaugural 2020-21 theme was Human Rights Pasts and Futures. Successive themes were Extinction | Imagination (2021-22); Archival Imaginations (2022-23); Freedom Dreams (2023-24); and Care | Culture | Justice (2024-25).
In addition to participating in a biweekly seminar, fellows participate in a series of workshops and programming. Fellows are also invited to contribute to the On Possibility: Social Change and the Arts + Humanities book series. The series represents a collaboration with the Wexner Center for the Arts and The Ohio State University Press. Each volume in the series aligns with the annual theme of the Society of Fellows Program.
The Postdoctoral and Post-MFA Researcher Program builds on the success of Global Arts + Humanities’ 2016 collaboration with the American Council of Learned Societies’ Postdoctoral Partnership Grant. The valuable presence of postdoctoral fellows at Ohio State enhances the university’s capacity for cross-disciplinary collaborations across academic units. To ensure clarity of expectations and transparency for postdoctoral researchers and their mentors and to strengthen career development outcomes, Global Arts + Humanities has developed a postdoctoral and post-MFA mentoring program. Many of those holding these positions have successfully transitioned into both full-time academic and alt-academic careers.
1:3 | Cross-Disciplinary Capacity Building
Cross-disciplinary capacity-building strengthens and leverages existing resources, entities and expertise to expand the university’s capacity for cross-disciplinary research that foreground the transformative role of the arts and humanities. These capacitybuilding investments include Centers + Institutes Grants competitions, among others.
Global Arts + Humanities is growing a strong track record of collaborations with other Discovery Themes, including the development of a K-12 Teaching Institute Community of Practice on climate change with the Sustainability Institute and Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. This COP aims to build research, teaching, and learning communities around topics at the forefront of sustainability and resilience.
As part of the Interdisciplinary Research Leads coalition, Global Arts + Humanities was also involved in the development of promotion and tenure guidance language for cross-disciplinary research as well as strategies to support faculty collaboration and network building.
Among the ongoing work in facilitating collaboration has been the development of several pedagogical tools, including CollabORATE, a card deck that helps cross-disciplinary teams translate disciplinary assumptions and practices; the Freedom Dreaming tool, which fosters contextual and relational thinking; and PROJECT IMPACT, a digital platform that emphasizes qualitative metrics. It is generative and evaluative and can be used at multiple phases of a project by cross-disciplinary teams and individual PIs. Additional uses include assistance with year-end reporting, grant writing, mission statements and envisioning project parameters.
1:4 | Cross-Disciplinary Grants Programming
Cross-disciplinary grants and programming sustain existing and seed new research and creative initiatives that advance the transformative impact of arts and humanities collaborations.
Arts Creation Grants are dedicated to funding for the arts to seed new, impactful, arts-led research and creative productions informed by cross-disciplinary methods and practices.
Centers and Institutes Grants include three categories of funding: Centers Grants (for individual centers); Collaborative Centers Grants (to support cross-disciplinary collaboration between two or more centers or for institutes that house multiple centers or programs); and Summer Institute Grants (for cross-disciplinary research and teaching).
Innovative Interventions are time-sensitive, rapidresponse research grants designed to enable scholars and practitioners to bring the insights and methods of the arts and humanities to respond to urgent challenges.
Cross-Disciplinary Digital Dialogues is a virtual series that brings together artists, scholars and activists working in a range of disciplines aligned with the annual theme of the Society of Fellows Program.
Mobile Methods Conversations foster dialogue on artistic and humanistic methods and practices and conversation about their adaptability to varying contexts.
Small grants include co-sponsorships and group travel grants that support interdisciplinary groups to attend conferences, visit universities or centers, or attend events or performances.
Global Arts + Humanities will deepen student engagement in the arts and humanities through crossdisciplinary research, experiential learning and professional development opportunities
GOAL TWO
Global Arts + Humanities advances cross-disciplinary modes of inquiry and discovery that prepares students with the critical and creative skills and intercultural competencies to address twenty-first century challenges and become ethically-engaged global citizens. Essential to this preparation is a strong background in a discipline, strong comparative skills and the ability to synthesize expertise from various disciplines. To be productive and principled global citizens, students must also refine applied skills in collaboration and team building, creativity, problem-solving and communication across cultures.
2:1 | Undergraduate Experiential Learning
Undergraduate experiential learning demonstrates the transformative value of immersive and translational arts and humanities.
Discovery Field Schools are faculty-led, cross-disciplinary, experiential-learning programs offered as one-credit undergraduate courses that take students to domestic destinations to learn about the transformational role of the humanities and the arts to respond to critical societal challenges. By immersing students in learning environments, field schools aim to close the gap between knowing and doing. To date, Global Arts + Humanities has sponsored ten field schools, including Defining the Color Line Field School; the Livable Futures Louisiana Field School; and Ohio Folklore Field School.
Group Travel Grants bring a cross- disciplinary approach to experiential learning that builds intercultural awareness, hones critical thinking and nurtures students as ethicallyengaged global citizens. Global Arts + Humanities cosponsored the Dance Brazil Education Abroad Program.
2:2 | Undergraduate Research Apprenticeships
Undergraduate research fellowships and mentoring are supported by the Society of Fellows program. Students are mentored through multidisciplinary approaches to the study of an annual theme and produce research and/or creative projects guided by these engagements.
In 2024, Global Arts + Humanities partnered with Ohio State Libraries on a joint fellowship program designed to advance undergraduates engaged in thesis projects, independent study courses or other in-depth research projects (including creative and performance projects) in arts and humanities disciplines.
2:3 | Graduate Team Fellowships
Graduate Team Fellowships are financial awards (three semesters of tuition, fees and stipend support) that recognize the crossdisciplinary accomplishments and potential of graduate students in the arts and humanities interested in discovering new connections between their areas of study and other fields. The program gives graduate students an essential toolkit of skills as
they prepare to enter an evolving job market – one that is highly dependent on networks, technology and a collaborative ethos. To date, the Graduate Team Fellowship program has supported interdisciplinary scholars who explored topics such as climate crisis, environmental degradation, medical addiction, and cultural representations of underrepresented communities. In 2022, this program became affiliated with the Society of Fellows, and the graduate cohort each year now work on projects linked to the Society of Fellows annual theme.
2:4 | Student Career Development
The Graduate Professional Development Program supports the professional development of graduate students (PhD and MFA) by embedding them in university initiatives involved in cross-disciplinary research and creative work to facilitate career development. The program includes a robust mentoring framework that helps students hone their professional and praxis-based skills. 25% GAA positions are available for one-tothree semesters.
Start-up funds for the development of the Center for the Humanities in Practice — housed in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Institute — were invested to provide graduate students with opportunities for non-academic career paths in the humanities. Global Arts + Humanities has also invested in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise to enhance its student internship program. In 2022, GAH launched its Imagine Futures program, which leveraged integrated arts and humanities to empower graduate students and their mentors to imagine and pursue diverse career paths.
Attendees of the Community Celebration of the Dead reception view the pop-up exhibit “Latinx Comics Past, Present and Future” on display in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library Reading Room. The exhibit was curated by Pamela Espinosa de los Monteros. October 19, 2019.
GOALTHREE
Global Arts + Humanities will strengthen the university’s capacity for transformative, community-engaged partnerships through creative and humanistic methods and practices
Community-engaged work is often an ill fit with university administrative structures, the rhythms of an academic calendar and the traditional definitions of faculty research, productivity and efficacy. Global Arts + Humanities puts forth a vision for publicfacing, community-engaged partnerships that are meaningful, sustainable and advance diverse perspectives.
3:1 | Community-Engagement Grants
Community-engagement grants support new projects that build upon extant Ohio State community-focused engagements. These projects include undergraduate student service-learning or other high-impact-practice curricular opportunities; graduate student pedagogy; and experiential learning.
3:2 | Best Practices for Community Engagement
Global Arts + Humanities is committed to community-engaged partnerships sustained by an adherence to best practices that respect community partners, prioritize their needs, resist exploitation and foster reciprocity — this includes exiting community-engaged partnerships responsibly and ethically. To foster best practices, we are developing tools for assessing the impact of community-engaged partnerships and advancing the scholarship of engagement by mentoring emerging researchers and practitioners through workshops as their community-based pedagogy and research develop.
3:3 | K-12 Interdisciplinary Teaching Institute
The K-12 Interdisciplinary Teaching Institute brings together elementary, middle- and high-school teachers from Central Ohio for a year-long exploration of multidisciplinary approaches to teaching. Ohio State faculty-led content workshops complement and supplement State of Ohio standards.
GOAL
Global Arts + Humanities will increase Ohio State’s national recognition as a leading land-grant institution and its distinction for excellence in integrated arts and humanities through crossdisciplinary collaborations
Global Arts + Humanities has taken a leadership role in increasing Ohio State’s capacity to facilitate the integration of arts and humanities in cross-disciplinary collaborations, to support publicfacing outcomes in these areas, and to create educational opportunities that demonstrate the translational value of creative and humanistic methods and practices.
4:1 | Leverage Existing Faculty Leadership
Leverage existing faculty leadership by mobilizing faculty expertise, leadership and mentoring to raise the profile and prestige of crossdisciplinary arts and humanities collaborations at Ohio State. Arts and humanities faculty have methodological and subject-matter expertise that enable understandings of the human dimensions of critical societal challenges. Faculty-led research and creative practices have and will continue to play a central role in identifying areas of high-impact investment and quality academic and community programming.
4:2 | Build Faculty Distinction
Build faculty distinction through tenure-track cluster hiring. In 201718, Global Arts + Humanities launched a cluster hire in the area of global migration and mobility. Eleven new faculty were hired under the initiative. Faculty joined the Departments of Comparative Studies; Dance; English; History; Linguistics; Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures; Sociology (Newark campus); and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Center for Ethnic Studies. As part of the tenure-track cluster hiring in science and technology and another in indigenous studies, Global Arts + Humanities hired two additional faculty. Among the accolades these faculty have received are Ohio State’s Inaugural Artist Laureate and a James Beard Foundation Book Award.
4:3 | Establish Cross-Disciplinary Metrics
Establish cross-disciplinary metrics through the development of qualitative and quantitative tools that connect the outcomes of funded projects with faculty performance reviews, while enabling researchers to better articulate project goals and progress. These rubrics make the case for innovative approaches that are not often recognized by conventional academic or disciplinary metrics. In 2022, in collaboration with the Department of Design, Global Arts + Humanities started to develop PROJECT IMPACT. This digital tool supports qualitative reporting in cross-disciplinary spaces of research and creative practices.
TRANSFORMING RESEARCH CULTURE
As a university-level initiative based administratively within the Office of Academic Affairs, the Global Arts + Humanities invests in creative and humanistic approaches to cricital societal challenges and solutions. It formalizes the university’s commitment to fostering an insitutional ecology of collaboration and incentivizes porosity across disciplines.
The Global Arts + Humanities serves as an integral facilitative resource and bridging mechanism for cross-disciplinary work across campuses, colleges, departments, centers and institutes. It drives critical work at the university in developing cross-disciplinary research metrics and supports research excellence and creative expression, innovative approaches to experiential learning, and community engagement.
The Global Arts + Humanities is an exemplar of best practices for cross-disciplinary collaborations at Ohio State. By building institutional capacity for cross-disciplinary research and creative practices, the Global Arts + Humanities establishes Ohio State as a national leader in the integrated arts and humanities.
CAPTION Laura “‘LROD” Rodriguez and the Día de los Muertos procession hold a pose while waiting to cross a busy side street on their way from the Gateway Film Center to Sullivant Hall. October 19, 2019.
“A comprehensive land-grant university, Ohio State is positioned to bring together expertise from multiple disciplines to co-create potential solutions and advance opportunities with our partners. The Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme, through its multiple programs, is critical to the university achieving its goal of forging strong connections with communities, better serving Columbus, the region, the state and the world.”
RYAN SCHMEISING Senior Vice Provost for External Engagement
