About HWW
Humanities Without Walls
We are a consortium of humanities centers at sixteen research universities throughout the Midwest and beyond. HWW aims to create new avenues for collaborative and interdisciplinary research, publicly engaged scholarship, and professional opportunities for faculty and graduate students.
About the Consortium
Initial Grant
Established in 2014 with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation, Humanities Without Walls (HWW) is a large-scale experiment in collaboration as a dynamic scholarly practice, based at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Grant Renewal
With our second renewal of the HWW grant in 2020, drawing on five years of experience with multi-institutional partnership in research and graduate training, we commit ourselves to strategic goals which center methods of redistribution and reciprocity. With this approach, we aim to disrupt the porous boundary between the academy and "the world" through collaborative partnerships that are ethical and equitable by design.
Through the work of our programs, HWW prioritizes accessibility to education for people who have historically been denied access, student-centered graduate education that places values discernment at the heart of career exploration, and redistribution of university resources to the publics they serve.
HWW's Major Initiatives
Career Diversity Workshop
The Career Diversity Workshop is an intensive two-week career diversity exploration for twenty PhD students in the humanities. The workshop provides participants with career exploration tools including values discernment, informational interviewing experience, and job document preparation that prepare them for a variety of career paths, both in and beyond the academy.
Grand Research Challenge
The Grand Research Challenge awards funding to collaborative research teams which apply methods of reciprocity and redistribution to community engaged, interdisciplinary, and multi-institutional research collaborations.
Academic Freedom
Humanities Without Walls Statement on Academic Freedom
The Humanities Without Walls consortium stands committed to the principles of academic freedom, free speech, and shared governance that are central to the maintenance of excellence at all universities. In our collaborations, we uphold these standards, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary divides and among scholars, students, and community members, no matter how challenging or difficult the topics may be. As a consortium that grants funds provided by a private foundation, we act together to promote these goals and to advance the standards outlined by the American Association of University Professors.