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 widely disseminate results of a study of the prevalence and impact of sexual harassment in the scientific, engineering, and medical workforce; and, of the best practice recommendations to prevent and address it.
National Academy of Sciences|Washington, District of Columbia, United States
To support the public history initiatives of the Public Lands History Center.
Public Lands History Center, Colorado State University|Fort Collins, Colorado, United States
Continued support for a program that introduces women engineers to leadership roles and academic administration as career paths.
Society of Women Engineers|Chicago, Illinois, United States
To support the exhibition “Seeing Truth: Art, Science, and Making Knowledge (1750-2020).”
University of Connecticut|Storrs, Connecticut, United States
To support the next phase of a pilot program to improve communication and collaboration between state policymakers and higher education leaders
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation|Princeton, New Jersey, 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.
