Higher Education
Program Aims
Higher education has been a focus of the Foundation’s grantmaking since the Foundation’s very first grant in 1936 to Yenching University in Beijing. Over half of all grant monies awarded since the Foundation’s establishment have been to higher education institutions.
The Higher Education program today makes only a small number of grants each year. These grants primarily support projects involving faculty and doctoral students in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. Such grants aim to:
- stimulate and support scholarship, especially projects that break new ground and that cross disciplinary and geographic boundaries
- ensure that high-quality research informs policymaking and public discussion
- prepare the next generation of diverse faculty and academic leaders
Recent Grants
To continue an initiative to improve communication and collaboration between state policymakers and higher education leaders
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation|Princeton, New Jersey, United States
To support a community storytelling initiative in the Harlem neighborhood.
The City College of New York, The MFA Program in Creative Writing|New York, New York, United States
To plan a new initiative on defining “American-ness.”
Arizona State University Foundation|Tempe, Arizona, United States
To provide supplemental support for a community-engaged research initiative.
University of California, Merced|Merced, California, United States
To support the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s initiatives to increase the participation of women in STEM leadership and entrepreneurship.
National Academy of Sciences|Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Program Administrators
Buffington has long experience in higher education, having served most recently as president of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and before that as associate provost at Harvard University.
