U-M, Mellon Foundation announce new Environmental Justice + Humanities Hub

December 12, 2024
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The Michigan Union Flag framed by vibrant fall leaves.
With support from the Mellon Foundation, the University of Michigan is creating the Environmental Justice + Humanities Hub. Image credit: Connor Titsworth (c) 2024 by the Regents of the University of Michigan

The Mellon Foundation has awarded nearly $4 million in a first-of-its kind grant to bolster the University of Michigan’s leading work in environmental justice.

Kyle Whyte
Kyle Whyte

The grant will create the Environmental Justice + Humanities Hub at U-M, which will provide students with education and training in environmental issues that are rooted in the humanities. Methods and insights from these disciplines have been called for by members of the communities working to address disparities in things like access to clean air and water, said Kyle Whyte, the grant’s principal investigator.

“Humanities fields, from history to literature, anthropology, philosophy and many others, can uplift why the environment matters at emotional and cultural levels,” said Whyte, a professor at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability, or SEAS, and the founding faculty director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment.

“The humanities also bring out community-based ideas and rationales for different types of solutions to environmental issues. That is huge, because it really helps facilitate democratic processes and bringing people together.”

A group of more than 30 University of Michigan students and faculty gather for a photo with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.
Students and faculty from schools and colleges across campus came together to present their sustainability and environmental justice work to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in March 2024. Image credit: Dave Brenner, School for Environment and Sustainability

Securing the grant also required bringing people together from across campus. The project’s development has included leaders and collaborators from the School for Environment and Sustainability, Program in the Environment, Office of the Provost and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

With the grant’s support, the team will create the first dedicated pathway in higher education to “cultivate the transformative potential of the humanities for advancing community-based environmental justice,” according to the proposal. And it will do so in a way that leverages values U-M shares with the Mellon Foundation, as well as the university’s distinct history and ambitions, according to the project’s leaders.

Barbra Meek
Barbra Meek

“We’re honored to receive this significant support from the Mellon Foundation,” said Barbra Meek, LSA associate dean for the social sciences.

“This new program will help undergraduate students take a humanistic approach to explore and analyze how people interact within their environments and an opportunity for LSA faculty to lead humanities-based projects and support hands-on learning for students by working with local communities and organizations. This will be a transformative experience for all involved and shows our commitment to sustainability and environmental justice.”

Humanities in demand

Environmental justice is the idea that everyone deserves the benefits of a healthy environment and that, conversely, no community should be disproportionately harmed by pollution, climate change and other environmental concerns.

The awareness of environmental justice has been growing for decades, said Whyte. As a result, more and more students and researchers have joined the efforts, often bringing perspectives and approaches from science, public health and engineering fields.

While these fields have been supported through higher education’s investment in environmental research, that has not been the case for humanities. Yet the communities at the forefront of environmental justice have long sought partners with humanities training.

“What a lot of communities are looking for are humanities methods to complement the scientific method,” Whyte said. “They want more of the storytelling, the ethics, the historical work.”

Whyte and leaders from across U-M saw an opportunity to bridge that gap through working with the Mellon Foundation and its dedication to supporting communities through the arts and humanities.

With support from the U-M Office of the Provost, the Mellon grant will establish the Environmental Justice + Humanities Hub, or simply the Hub, over five years. The Hub will forge connections between students and communities working toward environmental justice while developing a new curriculum, introducing a new undergraduate minor and graduate certificate, and creating positions for a new professor and lecturer.

Sara Soderstrom
Sara Soderstrom

With its emphasis on the humanities, the Hub will prepare students in a more holistic way, said Sara Soderstrom, a co-investigator on the grant and associate professor and director of the Program in the Environment, or PitE.

As a student studying chemical and environmental engineering, Soderstrom saw what happens when new interventions or technologies are developed without human connection between researchers and the communities seeking solutions.

“We have all kinds of technology that’s implemented poorly or it’s implemented inequitably,” she said. “If we’re not integrating a humanities perspective, then we’re not taking full advantage of the technology we have—let alone effectively co-creating any new solutions.”

Shalanda Baker
Shalanda Baker

Shalanda Baker, a SEAS professor and U-M’s first vice provost for sustainability and climate action, shared a similar sentiment.

“As a lawyer who has worked closely with scientists, engineers and social scientists on projects that advance climate action and energy policy, I know how much we desperately need to bring together diverse perspectives,” Baker said. “This grant will help to foment, elevate and support our campuswide and cross-cutting interdisciplinary efforts on issues of environmental justice, climate change and sustainability.”

Beyond better preparing students to meet real-world needs, Soderstrom also believes the Hub will help foster a sense of hope and agency when it comes to environmental issues.

“We’re hearing so much about climate anxiety and environmental anxiety, where people have a sense of being frozen,” she said. “The humanities give them a pathway to act.”

Leadership in action

Bridging disciplines is never an easy task, but U-M has built up the institutional support to facilitate this over its history. The university is, for example, home to the first environmental justice program offering graduate and undergraduate degree specializations, PitE.

PitE is jointly managed by LSA and SEAS and immerses its undergrads in a broad range of environmental areas taught by experts from across the university.

Sara Blair
Sara Blair

Still, what U-M—and higher education—lacked was a formal approach to environmental justice centering humanities methods and practices, said Sara Blair, an LSA professor and vice provost for academic and faculty affairs and arts and humanities.

“What would it mean to investigate the environment not only scientifically, but by engaging community knowledge, documenting lived experiences, opening conversations about different understandings of the world we share? There was a timely opportunity to innovate in the field of environmental justice by centering the interpretive activity of the humanities,” Blair said.

In October 2023, the Mellon Foundation issued a call for proposals to create an environmental justice program designed to engage communities by building up from the humanities.

Blair and colleagues recognized that U-M had the expertise and infrastructure to accomplish this, and noted that Mellon’s call shared key aims and language with the university’s Vision 2034. Both frameworks point to the importance of education, of democratic values and of environmental justice.

The proposal development brought together a range of faculty and leaders in LSA, SEAS and the Office of the Provost. With Mellon’s support, the project’s faculty are now working to build something new—a hub where students, researchers and community partners can make the knowledge they create together more powerful by connecting it to people’s narratives and lived experiences.

“We believe this work on environmental justice will be a model of what it means to innovate with and through the humanities,” Blair said.