Boston University Core Curriculum professor Christopher Ricks’ work in “humanistic inquiry” was honored in December to the tune of a $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
According to the organization’s website, Ricks received one of the four 2003 Distinguished Achievement Awards, given to “scholars who have made significant contributions to humanistic inquiry.” The grant will allow Ricks and the award’s other recipients to both teach and research their field “under extremely favorable conditions,” according to the website.
Ricks, the first BU professor to receive the award, said it honors not only his own efforts but the work of BU’s Editorial Institute, which he co-directs.
“Its clear from the Foundation that it was not just their respect for Boston University in a general way, but their particular respect for the Editorial Institute that made them decide in the end that we’d be one of the four beneficiaries,” he said.
Ricks said he plans to use the money to enhance the Editorial Institute by creating a volume of the works of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, whom he described as a “Victorian writer, judge, controversialist and important family figure.”
“It would be important for the Editorial Institute to have an edition of some of [Stephen’s] work,” he said. “A great many extremely interesting and controversial articles that he wrote have never been collected, reprinted or looked at.”
In order to create a collection of Stephen’s work, Ricks said he is asking the Mellon Foundation to use the money to create a post-doctoral fellowship position “where someone could start a career from.”
Ricks said his nomination came as a surprise – he had never heard of the organization until he was told he had received the award.
Both he and the university received a letter informing them of the honor in October, he said, but the Foundation did not want the news made public until December.
“The university needed to agree to accept [the award] just as I needed to,” he said.
That was no problem, he said, because the award shows respect for BU as a whole – not just Ricks’ work.
“Its very good to know that to the outside world, the ordinary daily teaching and research of [BU] is worth giving a lot of money to,” he said.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said the award was an “outstanding recognition” and that “everyone at BU should be proud.”
“It reflects well on the students and faculty and reinforces the fact that there is outstanding faculty here for the students to encounter,” he said.
Ricks said in the next two months he and BU officials will approximately budget out the award money. The Mellon Foundation has to approve the budget in April, after which it will send Ricks and the university the money.
Ricks was the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at the University of Cambridge before coming to BU, according to the BU website. He also won the 1990 BU Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching and was a Distinguished Teaching Professor for the National Endowment for the Humanities from 1994 to 1997.
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