Ursuline College welcomes 25 faculty scholars for two-week NEH sponsored institute

Ursuline College has recently welcomed 25 faculty scholars from around the nation to campus for two weeks for a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute called Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Rust Belt: Co-creating Regional Humanities Ecosystems. 

This program is part of the Rust Belt Humanities Lab, and is funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant of $173,680 that was awarded to Ursuline College to help faculty develop the best teaching practices for sharing the story of the Rust Belt to their students and the region. 

The participants will be on campus through Sunday, June 18 and will be immersed in Cleveland’s culture and history. They will explore topics like the importance of community-based storytelling, ways in which the humanities can contribute to the social and economic revival of the Rust Belt, environmental justice and community health, and race and place. Participants have also engaged with an extensive reading list featuring the words of winners from the local Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and pieces from Chicago Magazine, Great Lakes Now, Belt Magazine, and more.

There will also be special field trips to EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute as well as Rid-all Green Ghetto Farms and Farmer Jones, the Cleveland Public Library, Heinin’s downtown in the Cleveland Trust Building, the West Side Market, and various Cleveland neighborhoods. There will also be special hands-on experiences for participants. 

On the schedule is also a presentation that will be open to the public. Comic creator Derf Backderf will discuss comics as acts of witness and documentation, and copies of his work will be available to buy at Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry.

In an article on Ursuline College’s website, grant recipient and institute organizer Katharine Trostel, PhD, talked about the need for this study, saying, “Cleveland is an exemplary model for the Rust Belt’s challenges and opportunities. For too long, the Rust Belt narrative has been one of emptiness, decay, decline, and vacancy. Our stories are often neglected in the national sphere or controlled by cultural outsiders.”

Associate professor and chair of Ursuline’s English department Dr. Trostel also weighed in, saying, “Our hope is to find ways for academics to connect with and serve Rust Belt neighborhoods and identify how the humanities can contribute to the social and economic revival of the Rust Belt.”

A complete list of topics, events, and speakers can be found here. A complete list of participants can be found here.

More information about Ursuline College can be found at the school’s website.