The challenges of the 21st century demand humanistic thought. Leaders and citizens must integrate information from diverse fields to forge creative solutions in collaboration with others, and implement them with moral concern for the lives they affect.

Accordingly, 21st-century liberal arts education must be centered on: interdisciplinarity, fostering flexible understanding that bridges disciplines; collaboration, developing skills of listening and communication that enable creative cooperation; and community, cultivating empathy and ethical sensitivity for others. 

With these as our core principles, the Humanities Initiative at F&M promotes humanistic inquiry as the core of liberal arts education for the 21st century, via initiatives that foster humanistic thought and demonstrate the relevance of the humanities throughout students’ undergraduate experience and faculty members’ intellectual lives. 

The Humanities Initiative at F&M welcomes and encourages student participation.  The Student Advisory Board provides a vehicle for  interested F&M students to directly engage in leadership of Humanities-related activities at F&M, as well as to provide the student voice and perspective for the Humanities Initiative Co-Directors.  Interested students are encouraged to contact the Co-Directors for more information.

Humanities Initiative Co - Directors 

Peter Jaros, Associate Professor of English - peter.jaros@fandm.edu

Jon Stone, Associate Professor of Russian and Russian Studies - jon.stone@fandm.edu

We recognize that in whatever path of life students choose, the ability to understand differing values, identify conflicts in thinking and reasoning, and find answers to complex questions is essential for cultivating qualities of innovation and leadership.

That's why we emphasize study in intimate classes, with the student-to-faculty ratio in some humanities majors, such as philosophy, as small as 5:1. And we also offer opportunities for field study and research that students might usually expect to pursue in the sciences or other fields. Students at F&M experience and engage with the questions that students elsewhere might only read about.

This is part of the distinctiveness  in our approach to the humanities. Study at F&M spans the full range of study of human culture and the human experience, from classical archaeology to literature, to philosophy and cultural studies, and through languages.

Prominent leaders with a background in the humanities can be found in every sector of business and industry today.     The  National Humanities Alliance website  curates an ever-expanding list with additional names of humanities graduates at the top of their respective fields.