In the past several years, we have made enormous strides in hiring first-rate faculty, lecturers and postdoctoral fellows — stellar and diverse scholars who are providing a transformative undergraduate education for our students and creating innovative models of interdisciplinarity.

Today, we are leading innovations in health care and addressing health and social inequities and disparities through our popular Medical Humanities program; preparing students as leaders in the fields of climate change and sustainability through the study of environmental justice, and of human causes and consequences of climate crisis, through our Center for Environmental Studies; and training students for careers in law, international politics and public policy through our popular minor in Politics, Law and Social Thought. We are also pioneering responsible AI by developing curricular offerings on the topics of tech ethics, AI ethics, and technology, ethics and values; and examining the ongoing crisis of democracy by connecting the study of global and local world histories, cultures and languages, and offering a curriculum that reaches from ancient times to new ways of thinking about our future.

We are offering real-world internship and research opportunities by increasing the number of Medical Humanities practicum partnerships in the Texas Medical Center and expanding the legal and judicial practica offered through our Program in Politics, Law and Social Thought.

With generous funding from the Moody Foundation, our competitive Elizabeth Lee Moody Undergraduate Research Fellowships in the Humanities and the Arts provide a summer stipend of $3,500, enabling fellows to pursue a research project or internship of their own choosing. Beyond the tools, resources and opportunities the program affords undergraduates to experience and conduct humanities research in a wide array of disciplinary and interdisciplinary pursuits, it fosters a community of scholars through monthly meetings with faculty, workshops and interactions with visiting academics.