The Carver Project takes its name from George Washington Carver, whose life revolved around community, engagement, and dialogue within the context of his Christian faith and his calling to higher education.

Born into slavery in Missouri, Carver was committed to higher education, serving for forty-seven years on the faculty of the Tuskegee Institute. His intellectual curiosity and talents gave him an appreciation for many different forms of inquiry; though he made his reputation as a scientist, he initially thought that he would be an artist.

Acclaimed for his research and his teaching, he applied the same standard of excellence in all that he did, “learning to do the common things uncommonly well.” He was committed to reconciling racial divisions, once noting that “We are brothers, all of us, no matter what race or color or condition; children of the same Heavenly Father. We rise together or we fall together.” And he was committed to his Christian faith and the integration of faith and learning. Of his lifelong pursuit of knowledge, Carver would write: “Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless."