In 2018, Duke University received a multi-million-dollar award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to nurture collaboration and inventive expressions of the humanities at Duke and beyond (https://humanitiesunbounded.duke.edu/). The initiative offers increased opportunities for students to collaborate with faculty and other students by participating in research-based humanities labs. The initiative aims to generate flexible pathways that will enrich Duke students’ humanistic thinking and sustainably embed collaborative research and pedagogy in the areas that most directly shape undergraduate learning. SSRI has partnered with this effort since its inception in its evaluation and assessment aims, with a core focus on intentional and iterative design that speaks to an innovative and evolving initiative. Collaboration has included development of the theory of change and specific data collection and analysis activities, all with a core focus on understanding implementation and improving efficacy at a structural level.