Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities | Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities

Color photo of group of diverse college students in front of a colorful outdoor mural

A Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities prepares you for a life of participation: In public, with the public.

Housed within the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, the Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities is offered for matriculated graduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences. Broadly defined, Public Humanities works to engage diverse publics in the creation of knowledge by making topics like art history, history, literary history, philosophy, film, and theater, accessible, understandable, and relevant to lived experience in the world. Public Humanities projects are civically engaged enterprises that work with community-partner organizations to solve social inequities and to create community-based change.

Faculty who teach courses for the Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities work with Cleveland area community-partner organizations as part of their curricular mission. In these classes, faculty pair in-class content and learning goals with engaged civic practice. This approach emphasizes the value of learning by doing, as well as learning by serving. Service learning courses work to bridge the classroom and community environments through work done with community partner organizations. Classroom, book, and instructor-driven knowledge is brought to life by its application in the world. The Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities integrates the humanistic disciplines into the public sphere with projects that create, document, catalogue, or preserve content, or create lifelong opportunities to share in Humanistic content. Research indicates that the study of texts, music, and art can teach fundamental skills like compassion and empathy, creative thinking, problem solving, and skills of critical debate. Bringing the Humanities into public life (free and accessible to all) is therefore essential to civic life.

The courses taught in the certificate program train students to:
•   participate in contemporary debates
•   amplify community voices & histories
•   help individuals and communities navigate difficult experiences
•   expand educational access
•   preserve culture in times of crisis & change

Program Requirements:

The Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities is comprised one introductory theory and methods course (3cr), three elective courses (3cr each), and one practicum course (3cr) for a total of 15 credits. Each course in this sequence is designated HUMN, but the elective courses are also cross-listed with the instructor’s home departmental field. Elective courses taught at the 300/400 level may also count toward the completion of graduate work in the student's primary degree area (thus fulfilling both the requirement of the certificate and the requirement of the primary degree field program).

Campus-Community Border-Crossing Work:

Courses under the umbrella of Public Humanities & Civic Engagement work with Cleveland area community-partner organizations as part of their curricular mission. In these classes, faculty pair in-class content and learning goals with engaged civic practice. This approach emphasizes the value of learning by doing, as well as learning by serving. Service learning courses work to bridge the classroom and community environments through work done with community partner organizations. Classroom, book, and instructor-driven knowledge is brought to life by its application in the world.

Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities integrates the humanistic disciplines into the public sphere with projects that create, document, catalogue, or preserve content, or create lifelong opportunities to share in Humanistic content. Research indicates that the study of texts, music, and art can teach fundamental skills like compassion and empathy, creative thinking, problem solving, and skills of critical debate. Bringing the Humanities into public life (free and accessible to all) is therefore essential to civic life. This �ǿմ�ý certificate program encourages students to ask what their degrees (in Art History and Engineering alike) can do for society.

The Details:

Graduate Certificate in Publicly Engaged Humanities is comprised one introductory theory and methods course (3cr), three elective courses (3cr each), and one practicum course (3cr) for a total of 15 credits. Each course in this sequence is designated HUMN, but the elective courses are also cross-listed with the instructor’s home departmental field.

Certificate at a Glance:

Listing of Affiliated Faculty

Certificate Courses Offered in Spring 2024:

ENGL 364/464 & HUMN 364/464

Global Poetry

Walt Hunter

COGS 377/477 & HUMN 377/477

Ecopsychology: Reconnecting the Mind, Body, and Community

Fey Perrill

Evidence from psychology, biology, ecology, and other disciplines converges around the finding that humans need a close connection to the natural world in order to be psychologically healthy. This course introduces students to a branch of psychology that considers the mind to be fundamentally connected to the planet on which it evolved and exists, ecopsychology. Ecopsychlogy's goal is to support the pursuit of ecological justice by transforming people's psychological orientations toward the natural world and the ecological crisis. In this class, we'll consider the relationship between the mechanistic thinking of mainstream cognitive science and historical and ongoing environmental and racial injustice. We'll consider the consequences of disconnection from our planet for out physical, mental, and social health. You will read, write, reflect, and get to know the places and people in our community. These class activities will 1) allow you to develop and apply wellness-related knowledge in pursuit of a healthy lifestyle and improved quality of life for yourself and your community, 2) develop civic and societal responsibility and a deeper understanding oof communities in Cleveland. Some classes are held outside and off campus.

HUMN 465

Practicum in Public Humanities and Civic Engagement

As the culminating experience of the Graduate Certificate in Public Humanities and Civic Engagement, this practicum facilities experiential, collaborative, project-based work in the Cleveland community. Students will work with a non-profit community partner organization to design the parameters oof the study; projects might include the production of exhibition materials, digital interpretative tools, pedagogical tools (such as lesson plans), acquisition of oral histories, or application for grant support for existing projects. Students will work in consultation with departmental faculty liaisons and will share their work with the Baker-Nord Center. Reflective writing assignments will offer students the opportunity to create meaningful connections between their previous, classroom-based learning experiences and the work they are doing off-campus. Enrollment is by permission only.

ARTH 565 & HUMN 565

Karamu House: Printmaking and Race in WPA-Era America

Wednesdays, 10:00-12:30 at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Co-taught by Erin Bendy and Britany Salsbury

Initially founded as a settlement house in 1915 by two white sociologists, Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, Karamu House became an important community arts center in Cleveland, helping Langston Hughes get his start. Home to the Gilpin Players- a prominent Black theater group- Karamu House quickly became one of the best-known sites for Black culture in America. Karamu Artists, as Elmer Brown, Hughie Lee-Smith, Charles Sallée, and William E. Smith called themselves, were among the most prominent Black printmakers of the WPA era. Regardless, little has been done to contextualize these artists' work within the broader trajectories of Black Art in America or the history of collaborative printmaking. This seminar and the culminating exhibition at The Cleveland Museum of Art (scheduled for the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery in early 2025) will unpack how these prints and primary archival documents of Karamu House, newly donated to the Kelvin Smith Library at �ǿմ�ý. can better help us understand the racially charged landscape of art-making in Cleveland- and, more broadly, the United States- during the 1930s and 40s. Students will have the opportunity to write didactics and artist biographies for the CMA exhibition and help to create an ArtLens tour for the show.

5 Courses:

Introduction to Theory and Methods of Public Humanities & Civic Engagement +

3 electives from any participating department at the 300/400 level +

practicum

SAMPLE SCHEDULE