ABSTRACT
This introduction positions that humanists are at the forefront of the cross-pollination between science, technology, and the humanities. In offering a historical survey of STEM education in the United States, as well as a survey of STEAM initiatives, this chapter argues that in daily work as educators, scholars, and administrators, humanists find ways to collaborate with colleagues in engineering, scientific, and health disciplines, offer new degree programs that allow students to bring the humanities to bear on design experiments, and build an academic culture that promotes a vision of the humanities in the twenty-first century, as well as a vision of technology that is decidedly human. This introduction positions writing and composition professionals at the center of this humanist project, and argues that writing instruction, writing scholarship, and writing program administration bring STEM and the humanities together in meaningful, creative, and beneficial ways. Central to this inquiry are the ways writing professionals contribute to and reimagine the “vitality and versatility” of the humanities in a moment in which interest in STEM is on the rise.
