Restoring Trust: Humanistic Perspectives on Academic Freedom, American Democracy, and Higher Education Leadership

Restoring Trust: Humanistic Perspectives on Academic Freedom, American Democracy, and Higher Education Leadership is a three-year initiative, supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminar program, to explore how administrators and humanities faculty can collaborate to foster free, open conversations on divisive issues and rebuild trust in higher education.

Vision & Activities

Amid declining confidence in many institutions, Americans’ distrust of higher education has grown increasingly acute. However, alongside this external crisis of confidence, universities also face an internal one: an erosion of trust between faculty and administrators, especially when it comes to policies and practices regarding academic freedom. Recent years have seen a growing number of cases across North America where campus leaders and faculty members have clashed about what it looks like to promote the free and open conversations central to American democratic life. 

This need not be the case: rather than being caught up in mutual suspicion, cycles of recriminations, and bureaucratic infighting, campus leaders and faculty members could be working together to promote substantive conversations about even the most controversial issues. To model this path forward—one where dialogue, not division, shapes the future of higher education—CU Boulder’s new Sawyer Seminar will convene a group of faculty, administrators, staff, and students for three primary activities: 

  • Seminars examining the democratic purposes of higher education
  • Meetings with representatives from offices across campus to explore the details of university operations and build relationships across institutional divides
  • Working groups charged with developing concrete proposals for promoting campus cultures—at CU and beyond—committed to academic freedom, collaboration, and shared governance 

At the project’s conclusion, these proposals will be considered for adoption by CU Boulder leadership. 

Opportunities & Events

Stay tuned for information about ways to get involved, public programs, and much more. To learn more about the project, please contact Elias Sacks, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, and Faculty Director for Public Scholarship in the Office of Faculty Affairs, at Elias.Sacks@Colorado.EDU.

About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Mellon Foundation logo

We are deeply grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its generous support. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty and empowerment that can be found there. Through its grants, the Foundation seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and guided by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org. 

The Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar program was established in 1994 to provide support for comparative research on the historical and cultural factors in current affairs. To mark the program’s 30th anniversary in 2024, the Mellon Foundation invited proposals for the study of academic freedom and democracy in the American university. CU Boulder was selected as a recipient of a Sawyer Seminar grant after a competitive nationwide application process.

 

Investigators and Partners

This project is led by an interdisciplinary team of CU Boulder humanities scholars and administrators:

  • Elias Sacks, Principal Investigator (Associate Professor, Religious Studies and Jewish Studies; Faculty Director for Public Scholarship, Office Faculty Affairs)
  • Terri S. Wilson, Co-Principal Investigator (Associate Professor, Educational Foundations, Policy & Practice; Faculty Director of the M.A. in Higher Education Program)
  • Jennifer Ho, Co-Principal Investigator (Professor, Ethnic Studies; Director, Center for Humanities & the Arts)
  • Michele S. Moses, Co-Principal Investigator (Professor, Educational Foundations, Policy & Practice; Vice Chancellor & Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs) 

The project is spearheaded by CU Boulder’s Office of Faculty Affairs, in partnership with the Center for Humanities & the Arts, the Office for Public & Community-Engaged Scholarship, Strategic Relations & Communications, the School of Education, and others.