The Year Ahead for CHCI
In March, we sadly had to cancel our in-person meeting in Tucson, Arizona, despite all the hard work, planning, and coordination undertaken by Javier Durán and the team at the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry at the University of Arizona. Recognizing the ongoing closure of borders, uncertain future of the pandemic, and limitations on travel, we have decided that the 2021 CHCI Annual Meeting, originally planned to take place in Santiago, Chile, will be online.
Like the in-person annual meetings, the 2021 Annual Meeting will convene in May-June and comprise a series of network meetings, professional development sessions, and plenary keynote addresses and panel discussions. This past May and June, we successfully ran a series of online sessions that brought together directors and staff from over 180 humanities centers and institutes. The response and engagement were beyond our expectations and we look forward to planning the 2021 Meeting this fall with our Annual Meeting committee. We are confident that our member organizations and networks will develop engaging sessions and bring exciting ideas, questions, and resources.
Global Humanities Institutes
As we announced at the end of March, CHCI has been working with the organizers of current and upcoming Global Humanities Institutes to reschedule and move part of their activities online. Since then, organizers have begun hosting online planning meetings and workshop. They have also worked with CHCI to develop parallel plans for face-to-face and virtual activities, so that they are in a position to pivot quickly in the spring if it appears that the conditions to hold safe, small-scale, international meetings in the summer are still not there. Our goal is to avoid further delaying meetings and institutes that were originally scheduled to take place in the last few months, so that we can publish a new call for expressions of interest for new Global Humanities Institutes in September 2021. In the meantime, we will launch our new inclusive collaboration initiative, with a set of new programs and opportunities available to the CHCI membership.
CHCI Online Events
In addition to the Annual Meeting, we will also be hosting and sponsoring a series of events for the remainder of 2020 and into 2021. We are currently organizing a check-in meeting (planned for late September, early October) where directors and staff can convene to talk through their challenges, successes, and surprises of the semester. In addition, our member networks are planning their own series of online meetings, which we expect to announce soon.
Member Toolkit
We have recently received requests from membership for more guidance and resources on starting and running a humanities center or institute. Beginning in September, we will post on the CHCI website a collection of materials that form a toolkit for new directors and directors of new centers. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of leadership from around our network, we envision this toolkit to be a living document that captures the diversity of structures, programs, practices, and outcomes seen across CHCI and that serves as a testament to the vitality of the humanities center as a structure.
Membership Renewal
As planned, we will begin our 2021 membership renewal process starting in December. Please review your organization's information as listed in our member directory. If your organization has changed its name, staff and leadership, or contact information, please reach out to us at chci@humanities.wisc.edu.