Emerson Foundation Awards Humanities Grant

The Fred L. Emerson Foundation has awarded a grant of $250,000 toward efforts by the College to enhance educational opportunities for students in the School of Humanities and Sciences. The gift, added to the Fred L. Emerson Endowed Scholarship and Internship Fund, will allow the College to provide stipends and other support for collaborative research by students and faculty in the humanities disciplines.

"We are especially pleased that the Emerson Foundation, friend of the College for 25 years, has chosen to help us provide this significant and much-needed support for the humanities," says President Peggy R. Williams. "Ithaca takes great pride in its tradition of providing a hands-on education, integrating theory and practice. But we have lacked resources dedicated to fostering these opportunities in the liberal arts. Through this generous grant we will be able to initiate an annual competitive program to identify worthy collaborative projects and provide stipends for the student participants."

Faculty and students will be encouraged to develop proposals to be reviewed and awarded under the direction of Howard Erlich, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences. "Students regularly report that these collaborative learning experiences, which often take place outside the classroom, are among their most memorable," says Erlich. "This research model has been a well-established success in other programs in the school, such as the sciences, and we look forward to fully extending it to the humanities."

One of the largest institutional contributors in Ithaca's history, the Emerson Foundation made its initial grant to the College in 1975 to establish an endowed scholarship fund. In the quarter century since, the fund has been enhanced through additional gifts from the foundation and by contributions from friends, parents, and graduates of the College, including those who participated as Emerson scholars. It has become the largest such fund at the College.

In 1992 a $250,000 gift established the Emerson Intern Awards, which allow students to take advantage of internship opportunities they might not otherwise be able to enjoy because of financial constraints. As the result of a 1994 two-for-one challenge grant, over $1,150,000 was raised to support scholarship and internship initiatives and to give students computer network access from their residence hall rooms. In 1997 the foundation awarded a $500,000 grant to establish the James J. Whalen Scholarship Fund in honor of Whalen's 22-year tenure as president of the College.