Courtney Mauldin infuses her scholarly research with a clear purpose: to give Black girls innovative opportunities to dream big and envision futures filled with possibilities. Her involvement with the Central New York Humanities Corridor is critical to success: “We see the humanities as something that allows for dreaming, and we are creating space for girls to dream through art and literature,” says Mauldin, assistant professor of educational leadership in the teaching and leadership department in the School of Education. She co-leads the Collectively Envisioning Black Girl Futures Working Group, one of dozens of working groups in the corridor.
This fall, the corridor marks 15 years in existence and its fifth year into the endowment that provides humanities research support in perpetuity, thanks to an award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Though the administrative home of the corridor is at the Syracuse University Humanities Center, the corridor is a consortium of 11 institutions connecting faculty, academic staff, students and members of the wider community across disciplinary, geographic and institutional boundaries.
“The corridor has truly become a regional consortium with global reach,” says Vivian M. May, director of the Humanities Center and the corridor, and professor of women’s and gender studies. “Thanks to our support this past year, working groups engaged with over 3,800 individuals and collaborated with over 260 institutions and organizations across at least 37 states and 23 countries around the world.”