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
For CBL Scholar COVID-19-related emergency needs, and Xavier’s COVID-19 student emergency fund
Xavier University of Louisiana|New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
To provide emergency grants to adjunct and other vulnerable MLA members
Modern Language Association|New York, New York, United States
Special Grant of $25,000 to the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences for the Gender Summit18-Africa Conference.
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences|Toronto, Ontario, Canada
To support an initiative to explore changing definitions of “America” and “American-ness” in order to inform the development of new curricula and public programming
Arizona State University Foundation|Tempe, Arizona, United States
To launch a new, public humanities initiative that will provide support to scholars during the COVID-19 pandemic.
American Council of Learned Societies|New York, New York, 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.
