The Center for Humanities and the Public Sphere’s Public Humanities Grants continue to demonstrate how humanities can collaborate with communities.
Decolonizing the Curriculum: Black History and Experiences in Florida through an Arts-based Curriculum to Improve Racial Inequities for K-12 Teachers and Students established a partnership between Dr. David A. Canton (UF African American Studies Program) and Dr. Rebekah Cordova (All Y’all Social Justice Education Collective). The grant supported two workshops with Alachua County teachers, programming at a Harn Museum of Art Family Night, and three community listening events organized by Dr. Amanda Concha-Holmes.
Designing a Multimedia Language Access Handbook for North Central Florida a collaboration between Dr. Laura Gonzales (UF Department of English) and Robin Lewy (Rural Women’s Health Project). The project highlighted the language diversity that exists in North Central Florida while providing valuable resources to agencies and organizations that support non-English speakers.
Lastly, Emerging Voices by Victoria Grant (Hispanic Student Association) and Ericka Ghersi (Latina Women’s League) provided free English language classes and citizenship preparation courses for the Gainesville community, ensuring the continuous education of multilingual residents.
Reflections from one of our Grantees
“In collaboration with Valentina Sierra Niño, a Fulbright recipient and current MFA student in Design and Visual Communications at UF, we used community feedback to design postcards in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Mandarin/Chinese, Aymara, and Arabic. Valentina designed and printed postcards that highlight the diversity of languages in North Central Florida. One of the most memorable aspects of this project was interacting with community members at Harn Museum Nights as part of the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative. Valentina, Robin, and I are looking forward to hosting an exhibit at the Matheson History Museum.”
– Dr. Laura Gonzales