Message from the Director

Welcome from the Director

Welcome to the Center for the Humanities at Drake University! For more than forty years, the Center has been dedicated to advancing teaching and research in the humanities across the university community.

Continuing this work is especially important now. We live in challenging times. The question at the center of humanistic inquiry—What does it mean to be human?—is being asked with renewed urgency inside and outside the university. Changes in how we live (with technology, with institutions, with each other) upset what we’ve long taken for granted about our shared world. The future feels uncertain.

In these times, I can think of no better resource than the humanities. They offer insight. They offer understanding. They offer hope. Above all, they offer a reminder that what it means to be human is a question we have long been asking, and that no single answer will ever suffice. Indeed, continuing to ask the question together in community is just as important as the answers, particularly in these times.

My vision for my time as Director is to maintain the Center as a place where we can keep asking the big questions together. I want it to be a place where my fellow faculty stay connected to—or even rediscover!—those things that brought them into academia in the first place: the joy of discovery and creating; the opportunity to teach and learn from others; the magic of encountering an idea, a story, or a work of art that changes how you think about the world.

If you’re not already involved, please consider getting involved: join our email list, attend the Humanities Center Colloquium, or apply for a grant to support your teaching and research. We take a broad view of what counts as the humanities at the Center. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a humanities scholar, I hope you will find a way and a reason to connect. The Board and I look forward to working with you.

Will Garriott