Mission: To enhance the profile of the humanities at the Colorado School of Mines by means of interdisciplinary humanities education, research, and outreach.

Vision: To make the humanities a strong, integral feature of the teaching and research activities at the Colorado School of Mines.

The Hennebach Program in the Humanities, building on the Hennebach Visiting Professorship endowment, is an activity designed to enhance the profile of the humanities at the Colorado School of Mines. Reflecting the practices of such leading applied science and engineering programs as those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, as well as most other institutions of higher education focused on engineering, and in accord with the guidelines articulated by ABET and the National Academy of Engineering, we recognize the humanities as a necessary and essential component of CSM education and research. In accord with this recognition, the Hennebach Program seeks to promote interdisciplinary humanities education, research, and outreach initiatives. Since August 2006 the Program has been directed by Carl Mitcham, who consults with an Advisory Committee and reports to the Director of LAIS.

The Advisory Committee is composed of representatives from all four faculty ranks (lecturer, assistant professor, associate professor, and professor), with individuals serving for staggered two-year terms.

Please link here for more information on the Humanites Undergradate Minor at Mines.

In memory of his father and family, Mr. Ralph Hennebach, CSM class of1941, established the Hennebach Visiting Professorship in the Humanities in 1991. This professorship assists the Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies in faculty development by bringing exceptional humanities and social science talent to campus. By his leadership gift, Mr. Hennebach persuaded ASARCO Incorporated to join him in meeting a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to strengthen the liberal arts in engineering education at CSM. When making the gift, Mr. Hennebach hoped that the visiting professor would stimulate interest and inspire students to further pursue the humanities on their own. "My involvement with literature and the other humanities has broadened me and greatly enriched my life, and I hope to help others have the same experience," said Mr. Hennebach.

Ralph.L. Hennebach was born in Garfield, Utah, in a company house at the ASARCO smelter where his father was employed as a metallurgist. After graduating from CSM, Mr. Hennebach joined the American Smelting and Refming Co., now officially named ASARCO Inc., as a chemist in the El Paso plant laboratory; he subsequently became an assayer and plant metallurgist. He entered the US Navy in 1944 and was discharged as a Lt. (G.g.) in 1946. He then married Mary Louise Johnston of Denver and returned to ASARCO as assistant superintendent of the Hayden, Arizona, copper smelter. In 1948, he was transferred back to EI Paso and put in charge of the new slag fuming plant. In 1952, he attended MIT as a Sloan Fellow and following graduation, spent two and a half years in the New York office as an ore buyer. In 1955, he was promoted to assistant manager of the Western Department in Salt Lake City. He was appointed assistant to the vice president, smelting and refining department in New York in 1958. In 1963, he became vice president of smelting and refining. He was elected director in 1964, executive vice president in 1966, president in 1971, and chairman of the board in 1982.

Mr. Hennebach retired in 1985 and led a productive life in retirement until his death in 2008. During this period he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Engineering by CSM in 1990 and the Melville S. Coolbaugh Memorial Award in 2000.

According to one influential definition used by the National
Endowment for the Humanities, “The term ‘humanities’ includes, but is
not limited to, the study of the following: languages, both modern and
classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy;
archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and
theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have
humanistic content and employ humanities methods; and the study and
application of the humanities to the human environment with particular
attention to reflecting our diverse heritage, traditions, and history
and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of
national life.” In a world progressively defined by its engineered
design and technical management, all fields of the humanities are called
upon to attend to and try to understand the technical world.

But in like manner, engineering and the applied sciences — insofar as
they seek to serve the nontechnical world — are increasingly
called upon to incorporate humanities perspectives into professional
education and practice. Since the 1970s, for instance, the U.S. National Science Foundation has funded programs to promote the development of
professional engineering ethics. During the 1980s and 1990s professional
engineering societies expanded activities related to the formulation
and implementation of ethical codes of conduct. Beginning in 2000 ABET (formerly the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology) began
to require the teaching of engineering ethics in programs seeking
technical accreditation. From such concerns has emerged a growing
literature on the importance of the humanities and the liberal arts to
a liberal engineering education.

But ethics is just a beginning. Like the sciences and the social
sciences, engineering is called upon to become self-reflective in the
broadest possible sense in order to realize its potentials for
leadership. To assist in this professional advancement, the humanities
help place the CSM commitment to engineering knowledge and technical
skills related to the focus areas of Earth, Energy, Materials, and Environment understood in their most expansive forms. The humanities thus promote self-knowledge, intelligent citizenship, and critical participation in public life, and help turn a technical education into an expansively human one.