SHARP: Scholars & New Leaders Program

The Western Association of Women Historians is honored to have been one of the recipients of the American Historical Association's Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations, which provided relief to institutions adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The opportunity was made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) through the Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan (SHARP) of 2021. The program ran from the Spring of 2022 through the Fall of 2023. 

In partnership with the UC Consortium for Women’s Gender and Sexuality Histories in the Americas, WAWH planned a series of professional development activities to mentor graduate students and early career scholars for academic year 2022-23. 

A highlight of WAWH's program took place at Portland State University in December 2022, where participants learned about digital humanities from two experts. The first was Dr. Jeanette Jones of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and the second was Dr. Ashley Sanders of UCLA.  Dr. Jones and her colleague Kaci Nash from the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at UNL walked us through their pathbreaking multi-year, grant-funded project “To Enter Africa from America: The United States, Africa, and the New Imperialism, 1862-1919.  Dr. Sanders, who teaches digital humanities, ran an engaging hands-on workshop covering a variety of technologies. All of the slides from the workshop are free and available online at What you Missed in Grad School: Digital Historical Research Methods.

List of convening faculty:

Ellen Hartigan O’Connor, UC Davis
Annelise Heinz, University of Oregon
Lisa Materson, UC Davis
Patricia Schechter, Portland State University
Ula Y. Taylor, UC Berkeley
Jessica Weiss, Cal State University East Bay
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, UC Irvine
Rebecca Kluchin, California State University, Sacramento
Alejandra Dubovsky, University of California, Riverside

Read more about WAWH's mentorship through the SHARP grant in "Small Organizations, Big Impacts: Three AHA SHARP Grant Projects," in the May issue of the AHA's Perspectives magazine.