Signature Programs are projects that best exemplify the spirit of The Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts. Vassar faculty and others collaborate with partners across the campus, in the local community, and around the country to engage in meaningful work and dialogue about the most pressing issues of our time.
Awards for 2024–25
These projects from the Vassar community were awarded grants
for the academic year.
Storytelling for Change: Shaping and Sharing Inclusive Narratives in Higher Education, Media, and the Arts
November 7–8, 2025
This program about the power of narratives asks panelists to wrestle with timely questions about how stories can inform our views of ourselves and each other. Day one will focus on the evolving narrative about college in the context of AI, a shifting employment landscape, and growing skepticism about higher ed’s value; day two will center on how storytelling in the media and live performance can illuminate otherwise marginalized voices. Participants will hear from academics, higher ed leaders, journalists, podcasters, comedy writers, and producers/performers about the stories they tell, and how those narratives stand to impact the way we make sense of our lives.
SIMS: Students in Museums Summit
November 14–16, 2025
This program will bring together student participants from different museums across the northeast to discuss contemporary issues facing their institutions. With a mix of student panels, distinguished speakers, and opportunities to connect with others in the field, this event aims to generate ideas about the future of museums.
Women’s Work: Preserving Independent Film & Video Histories, Connecting Media Futures
March 26–28, 2026
This program will excavate and celebrate the invisible organizing labor, often done by women, that makes independent film and video production possible. It will bring together key figures from innovative collectives of the 1970s to the 1990s, scholars, archivists, and members of media organizations active in the Hudson Valley today to discuss recirculating films and videos of the past and strategies for making this kind of work in the future.
Lessons From the Poughkeepsie Journal Photo Morgue: Empowering Communities to Preserve Their Visual Histories
March 6–7, 2026
Drawing on the expertise of preservationists, librarians, lawyers, journalists and artists, this program will examine the importance and value of newspaper photo archives for local communities as well as the challenges they face in preserving them. The conference will coincide with an art exhibition featuring several local artists who have created art pieces using images or materials from the Poughkeepsie Journal photo archive.
EcoVisions: Finding Your Place in Environmentalism
November 14–16, 2024
This program aimed to provide participants with opportunities to see how environmental action could take shape in all aspects of life and highlighted how legal innovations might have been underused tools to aid and contribute to climate justice.
Promoting Partnerships to Advance Educational Justice in Poughkeepsie
January 24–25, 2025
This multi-day workshop explored the social, political, and historical factors contributing to educational inequities within the city and town of Poughkeepsie and how youth and their families experienced these inequities both in school and through interactions with criminal justice systems. Participants developed real-life avenues for coordination between programs and services that supported at-risk youth and helped them complete their secondary education.
The Entrepreneurial Mind and the Liberal Arts
March 11–12, 2025
This program sought to disrupt traditional models of entrepreneurship by engaging the values of the liberal arts to inspire new approaches to how individuals could mobilize vision into action and real-world problem-solving.
Belonging and Beyond: Using Future Histories to Reimagine Teaching and Learning
March 27–29, 2025
This program offered educators and students an opportunity to use “future imagining” methodologies to generate radically inclusive and exciting teaching and learning spaces in higher education.
Transgressing Borders: Reimagining Education and the Role of Learning in Community
April 18–19, 2025
This program was a multi-day workshop and festival aimed at reimagining how institutions of higher education and local communities worked together in a generative way. Together, we aimed to reshape how we thought about “town-gown” dynamics.
Soundscapes and the Anthropocene
May 10, 2025
This program explored how humans influenced natural sound environments and how sound environments, in turn, influenced us by drawing on a broad range of disciplines, including ecology, animal behavior, sensory neuroscience, human psychology, sociology, music, the arts, and architecture.
How to Submit a Proposal
All members of the Vassar community are invited to submit proposals to convene an Institute for the Liberal Arts program.
Deadline for submission: TBA
Criteria for Proposals
- The proposal has a clear and reasonable budget that is consistent with College policies and practices.
- The speakers, guests, or other programmatic desires are viable and attainable by the applicant/submitter (i.e. is it possible that the key aspects of the proposal can be materialized).
- The proposal demonstrates values of inclusion and Engaged Pluralism. Importantly, the content of the proposal reflects an appreciation for and inclusion of heterogeneous perspectives/ideas that embody the principles of speaking across difference.
- The proposal demonstrates robust collaboration across the campus or off-campus communities. The program is not situated in a narrow department or office, but rather engages various on- and off-campus constituencies.
- The proposal aligns with the Institute’s mission to create a space for intellectual exploration.
- The proposal lends itself to the creative use of resources to attract and engage alums, faculty, students, and others who may not be geographically proximate to campus.
- The proposal demonstrates a compelling reason why the proposed activities should be Institute-branded. The proposal demonstrates alignment with the specific mission of the Institute, distinct from Vassar’s overall mission as an institution of higher education.
Apply for a Signature Program
Download and complete the Call for Proposals Form. Deadline for submission: TBA
Funding Awards
The Committee of The Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts awards up to $25,000 for each accepted Signature Program.
You can review examples of Signature Programs and past Summer Institute programs. Do not feel you need to replicate this model; there are many ways Institute programming can embody the values of the College and the Institute.
Thank you.
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