The Humanities Center
The tools will change. The questions endure. Success belongs to those who think critically, challenge assumptions and shape a changing world with purpose, empathy and humanity.
In a world defined by transformation and complexity, the humanities have never been more essential. The Bucknell Humanities Center prepares students not simply to navigate a changing world, but to shape it with thought, purpose and humanity.”
— Karl Voss, Douglas K. Candland Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
AI is changing how we work, create, connect and think. And the technology will keep evolving.
The questions that matter most will not. What is true? What is fair? What is meaningful? Who decides? Who are we becoming?
Those are humanities questions. And in an AI-shaped world, the advantage goes to people who can ask them well and to people who can answer them with depth.
The Bucknell Humanities Center draws on expertise across Bucknell’s academic departments and other centers of interdisciplinary and humanistic inquiry. Because of its work, Bucknell graduates won’t just follow the conversations about global issues — they’ll lead them as thinkers, practitioners and policymakers.
Four Literacies. Four Years.
The Bucknell Humanities Center puts the humanities at the center of the conversations shaping society. Through focused programming, research and hands-on work, students develop deeper literacy:
- AI Literacy: Engaging AI critically and effectively, and cutting through the hype.
- Information Literacy: Weighing sources, evidence and claims in a crowded information landscape.
- Scientific and Health Literacy: Bringing humanistic insight to questions of science, medicine and care.
- Environmental Literacy: Understanding the human stakes of a changing planet.
Recognition Opportunities
- Bucknell Humanities Center: $10 million endowed
- Funds and names permanent support for the center’s programs and operations.
- Director: $6 million endowed
- Funds and names permanent leadership for the center, with budget-relieving program support.
- BHC Student Fellows: $1 million endowed
- Supports student research and faculty-led student groups that take on humanity’s questions and extend the humanities to the rest of campus.
- Leadership & Staffing: Current use and endowed funds
- Course releases, summer salary and travel support to amplify the center’s transformational activities.
The center’s first decade proved what it can do. Endowment makes it permanent and secures the humanities’ central place in a Bucknell education, for every student in every field.
Position the humanities lead. Be the voice that asks the hard questions. Be the ’ray.
Fuel Bold Exploration
Give students the opportunity, resources and mentorship to pursue big questions, cross boundaries and turn curiosity into discovery. Your support makes the full Bucknell academic experience possible. Be the catalyst that makes bold academic exploration possible. Be the ’ray.