The College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) has been working for the past two years to make the new Center for Digital Humanities Research. The center is aimed at using digital technology to better understand humanities research questions. 

“When we talk about humanities, we talk about the field of studies around human society, culture, and thought. From everything from history to literature to different world languages, philosophy, all of those departments,” said Jessica Mack, director of the Center for Digital Humanities Research. “So, we are trying to understand how we can better use digital technology, like websites, podcasts, digital maps, things of that sort.”

CHSS is collaborating with engineering and computer science, allowing them to connect humanities fields with other areas at Rowan.

“It’s also really beneficial for students to give them better digital skills, which we know is in demand right now in graduate school and the job market,” said Mack. “So, I have had a lot of students who worked for me have gone to really great internships and jobs because they were able to show that they can build a website, they can build a database and they are good with digital technology.”

The center allows students to preserve documents and create data that is easily accessible. Digital humanities can also work with medicine and computer science to digitize art that people with disabilities can not access.

“It is evolving to all sorts of things. So, it’s useful because it is going to be the future of dealing with texts and photography. It’s the way in which you can create quantifiable data from texts, which is something AI [artificial intelligence] tries to do but doesn’t do as well as digital humanities,” said Nawal H. Ammar, dean of the CHSS. “The College of Humanities and Social Sciences has evolved over time by trying to figure out how to engage with the public about history.”

Ammar says she hopes the new Center for Digital Humanities Research will open doors for students looking to get a job after graduation.

“The center is going to open a lot of doors. For example, Rowan is now pushing more and more and understanding how to include AI in research, AI in teaching, and so we now have a vice president who basically is responsible for that,” Ammar said. “So, the center is going to bring the humanities and social sciences into this age of AI, dreamscape, and working collaboratively with all the other areas to teach or do research.”

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