Three SLCL professors are among recipients of financial support from the Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities for their respective academic projects.
Of 14 awards given to 53 applicants from all three of the University of Illinois campuses as a result of this competition, Melissa Bowles, Stephanie Hilger and Rini Mehta were among those whose projects merited awards.
Bowles, an Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, and Linguistics, received support for her project on "The Bilingual Advantage Starts at Home: Raising Awareness of the Benefits of Home Language Maintenance Among Illinois Teachers and Families."
Hilger, a Professor of Comparative and World Literature, and Germanic Languages and Literatures, received funding for her project on “The Art of Medicine: A Public Square on Health and Medicine for the Illinois System.”
Mehta, an Assistant Professor of Comparative and World Literature, and Religion, received financing for her project on "Global Film History from the Edges: Engineering a Comparative Public Humanities.”
The initiative is a new system-wide funding opportunity aimed at highlighting and celebrating the public good flowing from the arts and humanities.
For more about the initiative and its criteria for awards: https://www.vpaa.uillinois.edu/academic_affairs_programs/initiative_arts_humanities.