This academic year, the SOF/Heyman is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Society of Fellows. Founded in 1975-1976 as a “small community” of humanities scholars under the auspices of the University President to provide a “model for collaboration across disciplinary lines,” the Society fosters innovative scholarship that applies the critical, reflective, and interpretive practices of the humanities in addressing “human problems” of “general concern.”

A new website, SOF@50, is an important part of our commemoration. The site contains a timeline of key events in the history of the Society of Fellows, with links to photographs, news clippings, and documents, as well as other ephemera. A digital bookshelf, which gathers together Fellows’ first-book publications, highlights the vast and varied contributions to knowledge catalyzed by Fellows’ time at the Society. The website also features a few of the many interviews with our alumni Fellows that we are compiling as part of our oral history archive.

The culmination of our celebration will be a conference on April 24-26, 2026, “SOF@50: Humanities in the World.” More than 75 current and former Fellows--some dating back to the earliest years of the Society—will join other members of the Columbia community to celebrate the accomplishments of the Fellows and to engage in conversations that aim to imagine new ways to produce and share knowledge for the public good.

We have also created an exhibit on the third floor of Butler Library, in the vitrines on either side of the circulation desk. Designed by Vasiliki Zochiou (GSAPP) and Kasiet Toktomusheva (GSAS)—and thanks to the generous opportunity afforded by Vice Provost and University Librarian Ann Thornton—the exhibit highlights the early days of the Society and the Heyman Center, including the dedication of the Heyman Center building in 1981, and traces the arc of many SOF/Heyman projects over the decades, such as Public Humanities, Justice-in-Education, and Climate Programming. The walls of the vitrines are lined with dozens of posters announcing the various events produced by the SOF/Heyman over the years.

Written by Faculty Director and Governing Board Chair Jennifer Wenzel and Executive Director Eileen Gillooly