Arts & Culture
$2 million grant to propel UC Santa Cruz humanities careers
Since launching in 2023, the Employing Humanities initiative has provided hundreds of undergraduates with real-world work experience—as resource development coordinators, editorial writers, digital marketing interns, and archivists—that helps prepare them for impactful careers after they graduate. Underscoring the initiative’s impact, UCSC was just awarded a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Professors Jasmine Alinder and Alice Yang (standing) work with Humanities EXPLORE undergraduate researchers Skyla Tomine, Monnika Mattson and Julieta Castro (seated left to right) on a joint project about Japanese American Redress.
Since launching in 2023, the Employing Humanities initiative has provided hundreds of undergraduates with real-world work experience—as resource development coordinators, editorial writers, digital marketing interns, and archivists—that helps prepare them for impactful careers after they graduate.
Underscoring the initiative’s impact, UC Santa Cruz was just awarded a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation.
With the increased funding, the Humanities Division is setting its sights on ensuring that every humanities major at UC Santa Cruz has access to at least one experiential learning opportunity during their undergraduate career.
“I am thrilled that the Mellon Foundation’s increased support will allow us to expand opportunities to all humanities majors,” said Humanities Dean Jasmine Alinder, who serves as the principal investigator for the initiative. “Experiential learning will be fundamental to what it means to be a humanities major at UC Santa Cruz.”
“Humanities degrees give students the problem-solving skills and ethical grounding that are in critical need,” Alinder said. “Employing Humanities serves as the bridge connecting the classroom with careers, and preparing students with durable skills that will serve them over the arc of their professional lives.”
Expanding access and impact across California
Over the three-year project period, Employing Humanities will expand its cornerstone programs—Humanities EXCEL and Humanities EXPLORE—to serve more students each year, while also launching new programs designed to broaden access and reduce barriers.
Starting this summer, a new offshoot of Humanities EXCEL, Summer Humanities EXCEL, will propel rising sophomores and juniors into ten-week, project-based, paid internships with nonprofit organizations and public agencies across California.
Providing internships conveniently in students’ home communities, beginning in Los Angeles County where about 20% of UC Santa Cruz humanities students originate, provides a fourth quarter to access experiential learning.
These paid internships address the economic realities that limit students’ abilities to remain in Santa Cruz over the summer.
Students early in their academic career can also look forward to a new program called HumLaunch, a summer program that offers short-term job-shadowing and virtual project opportunities hosted by alumni mentors nationwide.
Also beginning in summer 2026, HumLaunch participants will receive scholarships and structured mentorship through professional experiences ranging from a few days to several weeks.
Funding will support deeper curricular integration, including career-focused capstone courses and service-learning general education offerings across the Humanities Division, embedding professional development and civic engagement directly into academic programs.
Increased support for the initiative ensures that more humanities majors will graduate not only with critical thinking and ethical insight, but with the confidence, experience, and relationships to carry those strengths into meaningful careers.
Behind the scenes at a museum
Humanities EXCEL, a cornerstone program in its third year and set to expand, places students in off-campus internships with community organizations, where they can develop practical skills while contributing to social change. One EXCEL fellow, Kian Hladky (Kresge, ‘26, philosophy and anthropology), had the chance to immerse himself in the workings of museums.
Hladky is part of the exhibitions and programs team at the Museum of Art and History in downtown Santa Cruz.
He loves the teamwork aspect of his job and enjoys working with three other EXCEL fellows at the MAH. He also sees this fellowship as valuable preparation for a potential career in community-based nonprofit work.
“I deeply enjoy collaborating with others to promote the arts and humanities to a wider audience,’’ he said. “Beyond that, my internship has given me experience working in a small-scale organization that encourages collaboration and community engagement, both of which I would value in a career.”
A personal exploration into Japanese American history
Skyla Tomine
Humanities EXPLORE offers students the opportunity to join faculty-led research projects. The Mellon Foundation’s investment in Employing Humanities makes it possible for more students to do purposeful undergraduate research and gain faculty mentorship.
One of those fellows is Skyla Tomine (Stevenson, ’26, feminist studies and politics), a descendant of Japanese Americans who were interned in camps at Tule Lake and Crystal City during World War II.
Her research work is very personal to her and also aligns with her career goals. “It has been amazing to engage with my own family history and create educational resources for people to learn more about my family’s history too,” she said.
In her EXPLORE fellowship, Tomine is working with Humanities Dean and Professor of History Jasmine Alinder and Professor of History Alice Yang on projects relating to Japanese American redress—the process of seeking reparations for the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Tomine and three other EXPLORE fellows traveled to Chicago with Alinder and Yang to assist with a community re-enactment and short film about the Japanese Americans who bravely testified in 1981 to the Committee for the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The film is part of a larger cinematic digital history project.
These undergraduate researchers are also working on Yang’s oral history project by transcribing interviews conducted mostly in the ‘90s of people involved in the redress process, including lawyers, activists, survivors, and descendants of survivors. Over spring break, students will travel with Yang to Washington, DC, to conduct related research at the National Archives.
As she prepares for law school, Tomine sees the fellowship as deeply connected to her future. A great deal of her research focuses on the history of legal processes and the ways activism can shape legal outcomes. She described the extraordinary opportunity to work with archival materials and court documents, and to listen to testimony from the wartime relocation hearings held across the United States in the 1980s — particularly in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and Portland — where Japanese Americans shared their experiences of incarceration.
Tomine was excited to hear about the Mellon grant and expansion. “I am grateful,” she said. “The EXPLORE fellowship has been such a great resource for my career. My faculty mentors wrote me letters of recommendation for my law school applications and equipped me with relevant experience for jobs. I am so glad the program can continue to grow.”
Partner With Us
“Our growth is not simply about serving more students; it’s about being equity-minded and high-impact,” said Maya Woolfe, director of student engagement for the Humanities Division. “We are so excited to extend our reach throughout California and nationally.”
“We are strengthening our alumni network nationwide and ensuring that every Humanities student graduates from UC Santa Cruz with industry connections and transferable experience aligned with the fields they hope to pursue,” she said.
With plans to extend its reach into Los Angeles County and across the country, the Humanities Division is inviting alumni and employers to help create transformative, career-defining experiences for humanities undergraduates by joining its network, hosting interns, or serving as mentors.
The brand new Partner With Us page shares partnership opportunities for both alumni and employers in Santa Cruz County and beyond. From hosting an intern to becoming a mentor to sharing humanities-powered career stories, there are plenty of ways to get involved. This is a great investment in shaping future leaders who can positively impact both students’ professional growth and the work of humanities alumni.
As Employing Humanities enters its next phase, the renewed investment signals a long-term commitment to ensuring that a humanities education at UC Santa Cruz is not only intellectually rigorous but professionally transformative.
The Humanities EXCEL and EXPLORE programs are led by the Humanities Division with strategic support from the Humanities Institute and are funded by the Mellon Foundation, The Helen and Will Webster Foundation, the Humanities Division, The Humanities Institute, and private donors.