Announcing a Summit on Teaching the Humanities

Humanities Summit blog bookshelf full of books. Can't make out any titles.

Signum University to host online conference to plan for the future of undergraduate Humanities education

July 25, 2020

Humanities departments in universities all over the world have been in peril for years, and the crisis which the COVID-19 outbreak has brought to the world of higher education threatens to push the decline into a plummet. The humanities are in danger.

At Signum University, we believe that the time has come to scrutinize the traditional structures of undergraduate education and to step outside of conventional approaches to presenting the humanities. It is time to consider the future of the undergraduate humanities, and to plan a new program that will thrive in the 21st-century environment in which old-fashioned humanities programs have been struggling.

About the Summit

In the fall of 2022, Signum University will expand to include an innovative new undergraduate Humanities Program. Signum has been a pioneer for the last ten years, independently building a new, student-friendly, low-tuition, community-based, equitable model for excellence in higher education in the digital world.

Now, in the summer of 2020, we are seeking collaborators to help plan our new undergraduate Humanities curriculum and develop a revolutionary program structure. We invite qualified individuals to participate in this exciting collaboration.

On July 25, 2020, Signum University will host an online summit meeting for forward-thinking humanities faculty. At the summit, participants will have the opportunity to discuss specific curriculum models and to participate in the final stages of the planning of our new program. We will follow up this summit by publishing a white paper describing the new program, for which summit attendees will be offered a co-authorship credit. Attendance at the July 25th summit will be free of charge, but by invitation only.

How to Join

If you are interested in participating in the formative discussions of this exciting new undergraduate Humanities program, please send a Statement of Interest, accompanied by a CV, to Dr. Corey Olsen and Dr. Sara Brown at [email protected]. In your statement, please include a description of your primary areas of expertise and a mention of any secondary academic areas of interest in which you might be comfortable working. We will issue invitations to the Summit on a rolling basis.

We look forward to hearing from many of our colleagues and to working together to help make a brighter future for the Humanities!