Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the Georgia Institute of Technology a $1 million grant for a new learning center that will serve as an innovation engine driving digital humanities education and scholarship.

The Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center will be situated within Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, which has been at the forefront of digital humanities education and scholarship for decades. It will equip undergraduates with the technologically advanced tools and methodologies to participate in team-based research projects, civic engagement projects, and other learning opportunities under the guidance of faculty and graduate student mentors.

“Georgia Tech has long defined a vanguard for liberal arts curricula rooted in interdisciplinarity and technology. The center established through the Mellon Foundation funds will allow us to grow the scope and impact of our digital humanities programs and sustain an innovation-based learning experience for our students,” said G.P. “Bud” Peterson, president of Georgia Tech.

“This grant offers us a remarkable opportunity to bring even greater coherence and definition to one of our most distinctive strengths — the innovative ways that we use digital technologies in support of research, teaching, learning, and community engagement,” said Jacqueline J. Royster, dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair in Liberal Arts and Technology. “Mellon has our deepest gratitude for believing in our capacities to achieve, to produce, and to make a meaningful difference both in facing global challenges and in enriching the lives, talents, and careers of Georgia Tech students within the College and across the Institute.”

Royster and project co-leaders Lauren Klein and Carl DiSalvo, both professors in Ivan Allen College’s School of Literature, Media, and Communication, will develop a Digital Humanities Studio, where students will use digital technologies to conduct practice-based humanities research; a Civic Engagement Laboratory, which will foster team-based projects and internships to help undergraduates apply their humanities knowledge and technological expertise to real communities in Atlanta and beyond; and a Crossroads Series, which will address a range of complex public issues and connect meaningfully with various audiences through interactive arts and cultural events.