The Princeton University Graduate School will present Joy Connolly ‘91 with the GradFUTURES 2025 GRADitude Award. Connolly is the President of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). She is being recognized for her foundational and influential work in graduate student professional development. Her leadership of ACLS has been focused on creating systems and structures that promote innovation and equity in graduate education, particularly within the humanities, to meet the changing needs of scholars and society.

Many ACLS initiatives expand the professional development of scholars, including The Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows Program, which placed nearly 200 humanities and interpretive social sciences PhDs in two-year positions in nonprofit organizations and in government. Most recently, ACLS secured and will lead the “Graduate Education in the Humanities: A National Convening” with the National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Modern Language Association, the American Historical Association, and the Society for Biblical Literature. In addition to convening national partners, ACLS will also lead research projects on the topic of graduate education, and working/focus groups with a wide range of graduate education community stakeholders. 

On Tuesday, March 25, Rodney Priestley, the dean of the Graduate School, will present Connolly with the award, and she will share remarks about her work and that of the ACLS. A reception will follow.

Members of the University community and the public are invited to attend the event at 5 pm EST in the Friend Center Convocation Room.

The award ceremony is part of the 6th Annual GradFUTURES Forum, Princeton’s professional development conference for graduate students. This year’s theme is Meeting the Moment. The Forum features both in-person and online sessions and is open to the graduate community at Princeton and beyond. 

According to Evangeline "Eva" Kubu, senior associate dean for professional development at the Princeton Graduate School, the GRADitude Award committee unanimously voted to recognize Connolly's pioneering work and ongoing contributions to shape the field of graduate professional development. “In addition to her contributions at the national level, Joy has also been a long-standing supporter of GradFUTURES programming and a strong champion of Princeton graduate students in the humanities,” said Kubu. “From supporting career diversity efforts, advocating for public scholarship, and promulgating new narratives and broader definitions of post-doctoral success, Joy's efforts have inspired and empowered so many administrators, faculty, and scholars across the country and around the globe."

Joy Connolly began her service as President of the American Council of Learned Societies in 2019.  A scholar of ancient Roman rhetoric and political thought and their enduring influence in modernity, she came to ACLS after serving as provost and interim president of The Graduate Center of The City University of New York, the principal doctorate-granting institution of the nation’s largest public urban university. Prior to joining CUNY, she was dean for the humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Science (2012-2016) and director of the College Core Curriculum at New York University (2009-12). Joy is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

During her service as provost and interim president at The Graduate Center at CUNY, Connolly doubled the number of master’s programs and with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, established a major initiative to transform doctoral education, with the aims of orienting graduate research projects toward the public good and enriching students’ career options after completion of the PhD. Committed to hiring diverse faculty and recruiting a diverse student body, she also sought to improve students’ experience by increasing staff in student services, offering support in quantitative skills and methods, and establishing best practices in doctoral mentoring. She oversaw a major grant from the Mellon Foundation in partnership with La Guardia Community College, integrated the Advanced Science Research Center in the administrative and academic operations of the Graduate Center, and encouraged non-degree programs that increase the faculty’s impact on the public in New York City and beyond. 

Connolly earned an AB in classics from Princeton University in 1991 and a PhD in classical studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.  She held professorships at the University of Washington and Stanford University before moving to NYU in 2004. As dean, Connolly hired dozens of faculty, secured a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to support urban humanities, and worked to enhance the relationship between NYU’s New York campus and its sibling campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

Connolly is the author of two books, The State of Speech and The Life of Roman Republicanism, and over seventy articles, book reviews, and essays. Her current board service includes the National Humanities Alliance, the National Humanities Center, Middlesex School, and the Journal for the History of Ideas. She is a past member of the board of directors of the Society for Classical Studies. She serves on advisory groups for Imagining America, the Council of Graduate Schools, and Humanities Indicators, a project hosted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, the Independent, the Village Voice, The Times Literary Supplement, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bookforum, The Nation, and Inside Higher Ed. Deeply interested in contemporary art, she served as an interpreter/player for the artist Tino Sehgal and is at work on a translation of Vergil’s pastoral poetry. She speaks and writes regularly about the future of the humanities, the significance of studying the past, and the necessity of public funding for higher education as a keystone of a robust democracy.

Register Here to Join us at the Award Ceremony!

Learn More about the GradFUTURES GRADitude Award and its recipients.

Learn More about the 6th Annual GradFUTURES Forum.