Mandel Youth Humanities Academy

In the summer of 2025, students explored the big questions: What does it mean to know? How is the past built into the present? How do we make meaning? A highlight of the 2025 program was a philosophy sequence with Soulcraft Makerspace, where students considered the philosophical value of working with one's hands. Learn more about the 2025 experience in the Program Guide and explore highlights of student work in the Commonplace Archive.

"The Mandel Youth Humanities Academy didn't feel like just a group of students...It felt like a family. The intimacy with which people shared, even about trauma or tragedy, was so powerful to me."

— Owen P., 2025 participant

In the summer of 2024, students explored the big questions: Who am I? Who are we? Who decides? A highlight of the 2024 program was a rhetorical reconstruction of the speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X at Cory Methodist Church. Learn more about the 2024 experience in the Program Guide and explore highlights of student work in the Commonplace Archive. 

"The program introduced me to a plethora of intellectual tools that challenge my existing knowledge and address barriers to my moral and intellectual growth. It also provided a supportive community that values my voice and encourages me to express ideas that others might find uncomfortable."

— Natalie G., 2024 participant

In the summer of 2023, students explored the big questions: Who am I? What is justice? How do we know what we know? A highlight of the 2023 program was an environmental humanities sequence at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Learn more about the 2023 experience in the Program Guide and explore highlights of student work in the Commonplace Archive.

"Having the opportunity to take an alternative approach to education has changed my entire perception of such as well as my worldview. I genuinely believe I am leaving this program more educated than in my entire high school career. This program has genuinely changed my life, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity."

— Michael A., 2023 participant

In our inaugural summer, students explored the big questions: What is the examined life? What is morality? What is beauty? A highlight of the 2022 program was a comparative session with Graffiti HeArt and the Cleveland Museum of Art, where students compared ideas of beauty between public graffiti in the city and curated art at the museum. Learn more about the 2022 experience in the Program Guide and explore highlights of student work in the Commonplace Archive. 

"Coming in and writing daily and constantly having big discussions was a huge help with my anxieties about talking with people who I know are completely different from myself. After a while, I realized and accepted the fact that it was a safe environment, and it helped me grow in my confidence when talking to people who are of different backgrounds, both economically and socially. I needed it and didn't even know it."

— Keliyah S., 2022 participant