Landmark initiative reimagines humanistic inquiry

In an ambitious initiative designed to expand the boundaries of humanistic study, the University of Chicago is establishing a center devoted to addressing questions that transcend any single field or methodology. The Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society will create a destination for outstanding visiting scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences from around the nation and the world, who will come to collaborate with their peers in Chicago. The Neubauer Collegium will fund research into large-scale questions that require the expertise and perspectives of many disciplines, while pioneering new efforts to share that work with a wider public. The Collegium is named in honor of Joseph Neubauer and Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer , whose landmark $26.5 million gift to the University is among the largest in support of the humanities and social sciences in the institution's history. The gift marks a new chapter in the Neubauer family's history of innovative philanthropy in support of scholars and groundbreaking research, designed to make a lasting impact. "The Neubauer Collegium reflects the University's commitment to humanistic inquiry and discourse, important not only for its own merits but because it comes at a time when some other institutions are retreating from the humanities," wrote President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum in a joint message to University faculty. "The Collegium will create an intellectual destination in Hyde Park that will enhance the University's initiatives around the globe." The Neubauers said their support for the Collegium stemmed from a desire to help humanists embrace new modes of inquiry.