About Us

Working to answer important questions

H&A in Action is the College of Humanities & the Arts’ framework for connecting teaching, scholarship and creative activity, public programming, experiential learning, community engagement, and humanities advocacy. It creates structures through which faculty and students can develop work with one another and with broader communities—and through which the College can document, communicate, and advocate for the value of that work.

The humanities and arts are especially well positioned for this work. Across the College, students do more than encounter ideas in classrooms. They perform, make, interpret, research, design, translate, debate, curate, collaborate, and bring their work into public life. Faculty connect scholarly and creative expertise with students, artists, cultural organizations, community partners, and audiences throughout San José and the South Bay.

H&A in Action makes those connections visible and helps create the infrastructure that allows them to grow. Through grants, curricular initiatives, public programming, faculty resources, community partnerships, assessment, and documentation, we support work that crosses the boundaries between classroom and community, scholarship and practice, university and public life.

This framework developed from sustained work around the Artistic Excellence Programming Grants (AEPG). Beginning in 2019, Katherine D. Harris expanded AEPG into a year-round faculty-development and project-support pipeline. In 2021, Harris developed H&A in Action to connect that work to a broader College-wide vision for experiential learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public engagement.

Today, H&A in Action is animated by the values of Celebration, Playfulness, and Ethical Imagination, supported by the operating principles of Reciprocity, Sustainability, and Integrity. Its continuing principles—Experiential Learning, Innovation & Curiosity, Community Expertise, Global Awareness, Community Voices, and Interdisciplinarity—describe how that vision takes shape in practice.

Explore H&A in Action

Faculty and staff can develop projects through AEPG, curricular initiatives, grant resources, and other forms of project support.

Students can participate in performances, exhibitions, research, filmmaking, design, public humanities, community collaborations, and other experiential-learning opportunities across the College.

Community partners and audiences can attend public programs, share expertise, collaborate with faculty and students, and help shape work connecting SJSU with the communities around it.

Explore our Current Events, Stories of Engagement, Mission & Values, and AEPG: History, Impact & Future to see how this work develops across the College.