Changing the Way We Teach and Learn

Founded in 2002, HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory), is a free and open community that fosters a space for creativity, innovation, collaborative learning, growth, and thinking. HASTAC was an early participant in a National Science Foundation initiative to create “collaboratories,” online research clusters without walls, spanning multiple institutions and disciplines.

Often called the world’s first academic social network, our network pre-dates Facebook and currently hosts over 18,000 members from over 400 affiliate organizations.

Scholars collaborate among one another with guidance from mentors and advanced scholars. As an effort to continue to evolve and transform user accessibility, HASTAC transitioned to Humanities Commons in 2022. At its core, HASTAC provides space for curious individuals to collaborate on creating meaningful work and research. Each semester, HASTAC hosts events, showcases, newsletters, and more, to help members and those interested in joining the community to stay connected!

Each year, around 100 new students (Scholars) are accepted into a 2-year cohort of the HASTAC Scholars program.

Scholars come from various disciplines and have been sponsored by over 200 colleges and universities—ranging from small liberal arts colleges to large Research 1 institutions, public and private schools, state colleges and ivies.  Each cohort of the HASTAC Scholars program is directed by two Futures Initiative Graduate Fellows from the CUNY Graduate Center. 

The HASTAC program is currently co-directed by Cathy N. Davidson of the CUNY Graduate Center and Jacqueline D. Wernimont of Dartmouth College.

LAUNCH The HASTAC Website