Sioux City, Iowa — Morningside University has received a half-million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest supporter of the arts, culture, and humanities. As a part of the Mellon Foundation’s  2024 Higher Learning Open Call, more than $14 million in funding will support groundbreaking humanities-centered research and curricular projects at thirty colleges and universities across the United States, including Morningside University.

From over 470 submissions around the country, Morningside University was among the grantees selected for the category of Cultures of U.S. Democracy. The university’s proposal, At Home in Siouxland – A Humanities Collaboratory for Displacement and Belonging, stood out for its unique focus on belonging within local Indigenous, settler,  and immigrant communities. Funding will allow the university to develop academic courses, conduct community-driven humanities projects, and host pedagogical workshops that explore displacement and belonging through a humanities lens.

This three-year project, from 2025 to 2028, involves collaboration between a large project team on campus and our Siouxland community partners. Dr. Vickie J. Larsen, PhD, the Esther Mackintosh Endowed Scholar of the Humanities at Morningside University, is the Primary Investigator and director. The team includes faculty members Stacey Alex, Taylor Clemens, Patrick McKinlay, Joshua Nannestad, Jennifer Peterson, Wilfrido Suarez, and Dean Stevens.

“Morningside and our community partners are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for supporting our collaborative work towards understanding and promoting the cultures of displacement and home-making in Siouxland,” stated Dr. Vickie J. Larsen. ”As a team, we will bring the study of literature, music, theater, political theory, Spanish, history, and the digital humanities to the question of how people have made our city and its region their home. The community-building work of the Morningside faculty and students testifies to the vitality of the humanities in the Siouxland and American public life.”

By supporting humanities initiatives at institutions that serve diverse communities, the Mellon Foundation reinforces its belief in the power of the humanities to promote broader societal understanding. “We at Mellon know that the significance of the humanities is not merely academic. We also know that humanities scholars at institutions across the country are doing phenomenal work that is making a real impact in the areas targeted by our call,” said Phillip Brian Harper, program director for Higher Learning at the Mellon Foundation. “Our objective with this call was to identify and support some of the strongest instances of that work, and the incredibly high quality of the selected grantees shows that we succeeded spectacularly.”

This marks an exciting milestone for Morningside University and other recipients focused on advancing inclusive and impactful research.