Since 2000, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has made the promotion of the humanities a priority by presenting the prestigious Distinguished Achievement Award to individual scholars. This year, the College of Arts and Sciences’ Christopher Ricks, Warren Professor of the Humanities and co-director of the University’s Editorial Institute, was one of only four academics to receive the $1.5 million award, given “to promote especially favorable conditions for scholarly work and to emphasize the humanities’ impact on the country’s intellectual life.”

Ricks, who has written and edited numerous books on the works of T. S. Eliot, Tennyson, Browning, and other English poets and authors, plans to use the grant to foster the work of the Editorial Institute, a graduate program that focuses on literary editing. He also hopes to edit a collection of essays by James Fitzjames Stephen, a 19th-century political figure.