Mission

To enhance CMC's mission to educate leading minds, the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies provides opportunities for research, study, and experience in art, literature, history, philosophy and other fields as a means to understand and develop the power and use of the imagination. The Gould Center provides mutual research opportunities for students and faculty in the humanities and emphasizes the relationship of the humanities and the moral imagination through special programs in a range of fields including music, art, and literature. The Gould Center accomplishes its goals by sponsoring research and visiting fellowships, lectures, seminars, artistic and musical performances, and traveling fellowships.

Diversity and inclusion initiative

The Gould Center for Humanistic Studies is committed to building a culture at CMC that embraces inclusion and diversity. These values are indispensable for advancing innovation and knowledge within the humanities. Any study of the humanities is incomplete if it fails to affirmatively include and embrace the voices of persons of all identities and backgrounds. Whether by asking unanticipated questions, offering up novel insights, or disrupting traditional ways of thinking, a diverse community better enables us to deepen our humanistic understanding of the world in which we live and the forces that shape it. At the Gould Center, our initiative for diversity and inclusion aims to uplift diverse voices in the humanities through all of our programming.

History

The Center for Humanistic Studies was established in 1985 under the guidance of Ricardo Quinones, then professor of comparative literature. The focus of the Center was the exploration of how science, industrialization, and changing values affected literature and the arts since the Renaissance. In 1989, the name of the Center was changed to The Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies to honor a $2 million grant from the Shirley H. and Benjamin Z. Gould Foundation and the generous support of Mrs. Shirley Gould, her daughter, Barbara Gould, and son, Edward S. Gould '65. The grant allowed for a program of student fellowships, faculty research grants, a visiting fellows program, and seminars.