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The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) announced the 2025 participants for the Humanities Without Walls Summer Bridge Program. Ph.D. student Toyosi Morgan is one of only five students selected for the program!
Morgan (Theatre) will be working with the Promise Zone. Morgan studied and taught theatre arts at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. With a background in journalism, she brings awareness of current events to her creative practice. In 2019, she founded Theatre Maniacs, a company focused on Theatre for Social Change, blending real events with African Total Theatre and contemporary global performance practices. Morgan specializes in directing, social justice theatre, documentary theatre, performance studies, and interdisciplinarity. She is a doctoral candidate and graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Theatre at the University of Illinois, with a minor in Women and Gender Studies. She was named a Mellon Foundation Interseminars Fellow with the Humanities Research Institute in 2022–23 and received the 2024 Graduate Student of the Year Ebony Excellence Award from the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center. Her work fosters critical reflection and communal care, as seen in Playing Down Playing Up and I Won’t Mind My Business, which challenges silence around racialized and gender-based violence.
The Summer Bridge Program, developed by Humanities Without Walls with support from the Mellon Foundation and the Graduate College, offers PhD students in the humanities at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a unique opportunity to apply their academic training beyond the classroom. Through partnerships with community organizations in the Champaign-Urbana area—and with support from We CU—participants design and implement projects that address local needs. The program emphasizes skill-building, career exploration, and real-world impact, helping students gain experience, develop transferable skills, and explore diverse professional paths with mentoring and guidance along the way.
Read the full announcement and participant bios at Five Humanities Ph.D. Students Selected to Support CU Organizations.