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Juniata College Awarded Grant from Mellon Foundation to Partner with the Community and Enrich Student Learning about Environmental Challenges

(Posted January 6, 2025)

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HUNTINGDON, Pa. – The Mellon Foundation has awarded Juniata College a $500,000, three-year grant focused on building connections between faculty, students, and residents of Central Pennsylvania to understand and enrich learning about regional environmental challenges. Residents will be encouraged to share their stories, experiences, and relationships with natural resources to identify future outcomes that will positively benefit their community, the environment, and economy. This is the fourth Mellon Foundation grant that Juniata has received since 2014. 

“This award underscores the relevance of the humanities in developing effective community partnerships,” said Juniata College Provost Lauren Bowen. “Providing students with meaningful engagement in the community is central to our mission and we hope that engagement is mutually beneficial to the community.”   

The grant work will begin with outreach to communities, which will focus on experiences of residents, artists, advocates, and scholars who have faced economic, social, and health challenges because of mining, drilling, or quarrying industries in their communities. The Huntingdon County Conservation District will serve as one of Juniata College’s partners in facilitating community connections. Students studying literature, history, religion, and philosophy will partner with students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses to document and archive these stories and perspectives for future research.  

Humanities faculty members will work to infuse the created archival materials into non-humanities courses. For example, leveraging Juniata’s longstanding strengths in STEM disciplines, a biology course on environmental toxicology could be revised to include the historical perspectives of people affected by coal mining. In addition, community members and regional environmental professionals could participate in course revision by observing instruction or sharing their reflections to ensure local voices are included in the environmental studies work. This collaborative approach will enhance the academic experience for students and equip them with the knowledge and tools to address real-world environmental challenges. 

As the grant advances, activities will include short-term study experiences and internships and/or summer research opportunities. A final symposium highlighting the results of the multi-year project – new courses, partnerships, and knowledge – will bring the grant to a conclusion.  

 Juniata College has received three previous grants from the Mellon Foundation in 2018, 2017, and 2014. Funds from these grants facilitated the assessment, planning, and implementation of the Juniata College Curriculum, a general education curriculum designed to focus students’ curiosity to connect ideas, develop skills to engage with people and issues, and learn to discern meaning, relevance, and value.  

About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation  

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, the Foundation seeks to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org. 

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.