Guggenheim Fellowship Awarded to Associate Professor Leslie Hewitt

POSTED ON: April 8, 2020

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Photo by Argenis Apolinario

Professor Leslie Hewitt. Photo by Argenis Apolinario

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has named Associate Professor Leslie Hewitt A'00 a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow. She is one of a diverse group of 175 writers, scholars, artists, and scientists who were selected from almost 3,000 applicants in the Foundation’s ninety-fifth competition. Previous recipients include writers James Baldwin and Alice Walker, biologist, author, and conservationist Rachel Carson, and fellow Cooper faculty and artist Dennis Adams.

“It’s exceptionally encouraging to be able to share such positive news at this terribly challenging time” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Foundation. “A Guggenheim Fellowship has always offered practical assistance, helping Fellows do their work. As we grapple with the difficulties of the moment, it is also important to look to the future. The artists, writers, scholars, and scientific researchers supported by the Fellowship will help us understand and learn from what we are enduring individually and collectively, and it is an honor for the Foundation to help them do their essential work.” 

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.