For nearly a quarter century, the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research has been dedicated to fostering and celebrating the humanities and related research among the community of scholars across the Texas A&M University campus and the world. The center, one of three dozen housed within the College of Arts and Sciences, has undergone various changes since its 1999 inception as the then-Texas A&M University System Board of Regents-approved Center for Humanities Research, most notably receiving its eponymous naming endowment in 2002 from Susanne M. and Melbern G. Glasscock ’59.
Last fall, Dr. Troy Bickham was appointed to direct the Glasscock Center, inheriting a role that he’s been preparing for in his own scholarship throughout his previous 20 years as a Texas A&M faculty member.
“I credit what I’ve been able to do successfully in my own research to the Glasscock Center’s support for the humanities that I had as a junior scholar in 2003,” said Bickham, a professor in the Department of History. “I not only got financial support for archival trips, but the then-director, Dr. James Rosenheim, was a mentor to me and showed me the benefits of sharing work with fellow humanists in other disciplines. This is an opportunity to give back to that and continue the good work that’d been established two decades ago.”
The Glasscock Center’s foundation is to “seed, incubate and facilitate” humanities research, and Bickham has eagerly set the tone for his tenure as its interim director. As the administrative lead for an endowed center, he is in a unique position to introduce or expand initiatives without cutting others. The Glasscock Center’s Faculty Advisory Board, composed of Texas A&M faculty and two graduate students from various fields in the humanities, provides input on how these funds are used.
In addition to continuing the center’s themed working groups focused on bringing scholars to campus, workshopping papers and organizing events, Bickham has devoted considerable effort toward elevating the Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship to a premier international prize in its 24th year.
“The endowed prize is unique in that it recognizes outstanding scholarship in the humanities that appeals to academic and nonacademic audiences alike,” said Bickham, who serves as chair of the final selection committee. “All of the shortlisted books were recently selected by shortlisting committees comprised of Texas A&M humanities faculty, graduate students and teachers from the Bryan and College Station school districts.”
I like to see the Glasscock Center be the leader in humanities research. ... We bring a conversation space for the humanities for faculty, students and members of the community to come together and discuss issues from the past, present and future. What I’d like to see more are people who are not necessarily part of the humanities taking advantage of our existence to experience a humanistic way of looking at things and inform them as they contemplate various issues.
Each year, the Glasscock Center traditionally hosts themed initiatives that guide discussion groups, events and programming. Since 2018, the main initiative has been “Humanities: Land Sea Space,” which aims to explore a range of environmental issues and challenges by applying humanistic methods of scholarship. This year, the center will be launching its next theme through a new process.
“We’ve decided to flip it this year and put out a call to the faculty because we’ve been separated from each other for the last two years,” Bickham said. “The pandemic affected everyone in different ways. Of course, that’s going to bleed into the research and the questions we’re asking. We’ve offered research initiative grants ranging from one to three years, allowing people to look around, take stock and be able to bring ideas for initiatives to the center.”
Results of this process have been the themed initiative “Humanities in the Anthropocene,” a three-year program consisting of faculty members from different departments and collaborators outside the university starting in September, and “Energy Humanities in the Global South,” a year-long program led by faculty members to gauge interest in the topic.
There are also new programs meant to further the studies of humanities on campus for students and faculty. Bickham notes there is more support for graduate students, particularly two new programs meant to bolster them at the beginning and end of their graduate studies. The first is the addition of 13 new Arrival Fellowships given to individual departments to help recruit incoming humanities graduate students by awarding seed funding in support of their research. The latter program is the Graduate Residential Fellowships, intended to mirror the Faculty Residential Fellowships that enable awardees to focus on their research by providing a stipend, an office and an exemption from teaching for a semester.
Meanwhile, undergraduate students also will benefit from the revitalization of the Glasscock Undergraduate Summer Scholars program. Supported by the University Writing Center and LAUNCH: Undergraduate Research, the program expands undergraduate research in the humanities by providing an intensive summer research experience in which students are introduced to important research questions, trained in methods of research and analysis, and guided in the development of critical thinking, independent learning and communications skills. Faculty also have access to a Visiting Fellows Program that invites scholars from around the world to spend a week at Texas A&M participating in daily activities designed to enrich the academic community.
“Ultimately, we need to be flexible, and we’ve been blessed with a substantial naming endowment from Melbern and Susanne Glasscock,” Bickham said. “That’s allowed us to be innovative and have aggressive approaches to supporting the humanities. We’re in a great position where if we see another center doing something interesting, we can take a chance and try it out, modify it for Texas A&M and see if it works.”
Bickham began his Texas A&M journey in 2003 as an assistant professor of history before receiving a promotion to associate professor and the Rothrock ’77 Fellowship in 2009. That same year, he ventured to the Qatar campus, where he served in various leadership roles, soon chairing their liberal arts program from 2012-15 and their STEAM Initiative from 2013-15 before becoming assistant dean for Academic and Student Services from 2015-18 and then the inaugural executive director for the Center for Teaching and Learning from 2017-18.
An elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Bickham has authored four books related to British culture and history, including his latest in 2020 titled “Eating the Empire” about how food from around the world influenced British culture in the 18th century.
“I like to see the Glasscock Center be the leader in humanities research,” Bickham said. “We’ve been there for a bit, and I’d love to continue to do that more than we already have. We bring a conversation space for the humanities for faculty, students and members of the community to come together and discuss issues from the past, present and future. What I’d like to see more are people who are not necessarily part of the humanities taking advantage of our existence to experience a humanistic way of looking at things and inform them as they contemplate various issues.”