NEH Awards, 2018-2023:

• • • • • • University of Chicago, $3.4 million
          • Princeton University, $3.3 million
          • Harvard University, $2.6 million

When award funding is not necessary for a project, it adds to the wealth of the recipient institution. Growing the surplus capital at affluent universities in this way has a direct and negative impact on institutions in need.

Humanities grantmakers do not calculate how much time is lost each year by scholars at institutions in financial crises so that universities with financial stability—if not affluence—receive monetary awards. The post-rejection time-loss from NEH and ACLS competitions in 2021-2022 in the UPR-M Departamento de Humanidades alone was over 100 hours. This was time and effort that we did not have to lose, and it was uncompensated.

How much time will be lost this year in our department and in our professional lives, and indeed across the rejected cohorts, so that scholars who do not need funding receive it? Is this a figure that could be lowered to zero hours?  If it were, how would this reshape what these organizations do? How would it change the Humanities as a practice in Puerto Rico and places like it? How would it impact the “crisis” in Humanities? How is the rejection time-lost figure different at UPR than at the likes of Harvard, Chicago, Princeton or Stanford?  Is any time lost at universities like that upon rejection? The fact that these metrics are not published, considered, examined, discussed or critiqued strengthens the illusion that NEH and ACLS support the humanities in places where funding is most needed (or needed at all).

The structure of Humanities grantmaking does not recognize that a grant rejection at Harvard et. al.—where scholars have institutional support regardless of grant success—is different from grant rejection at the UPR. In the privileged instutions, if “rejection” impacts an applicant’s ability to complete their proposed activities is unclear, but for the UPR cohort, there is no uncertainty: we cannot proceed.

While that gap should define the structure of humanities grantmaking, it is not considered.

These organizations could (and, we argue, should) consider a FAFSA-like scale. While this would involve non-monetary awards for some scholars, grant recipients and the general public need not be notified if an agency or an institution provided the support for their work. The award recognition, regard and prestige would be unchanged.

To be sure, any financial support whatever going to universities that do not need it reduces the humanities research done in Puerto Rico and places like it.

The fact is: funding wealthy institutions is destructive to the Humanities. 

-Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera & Héctor José Huyke.