2016 Humanities Grant Awards and Offers
Humanities Access Grants
Announced November 2016
Appalshop, Inc. (Whitesburg, Kentucky)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Caroline Rubens
Project Title: From These Hills: Public Programming and Engagement through the Appalshop Archive
Project Description: For almost fifty years, Appalshop has worked with the local community to document the stories of Appalachia by preserving regionally generated audio, visual, and cultural collections. The Appalshop Archive will enhance its humanities programs, improve access to its collection, and broaden and deepen its unique role as a regionally-based cultural, arts, and humanities center in Appalachia.
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Alabama)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Priscilla Cooper
Project Title: Legacy Youth Leadership Program
Project Description:The Legacy Youth Leadership Program utilizes the Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute’s collections, programs, and partnerships to engage area high school students in a series of training experiences and internship opportunities.The program trains its participants to be docents for the Institute, as well as lifelong learners, productive citizens, and community leaders.
Book Arts Press (Charlottesville, Virginia)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Danielle Culpepper
Project Title: Rare Book School's Global Book Histories Initiative
Project Description: The Rare Book School will expand its educational offerings by providing thirty-six full fellowships to professionals of color and those working with collections associated with people of color. It will also develop new courses that deal with topics beyond the Western canon.
Brooklyn Children's Museum (Brooklyn, New York)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Petrushka Bazin Larsen
Project Title: Brooklyn Children's Museum - Teen Crew After School Program
Project Description: The museum plans to build on its successful apprenticeship and college preparatory program, Teen Crew, to accommodate 60 teens over the summer and 80 teens during the academic year. The program allows high school students to explore early childhood education, science, animal care, and arts and culture, while promoting the humanities as a relevant career option and developing the next generation of museum professionals.
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (Detroit, Michigan)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Juanita Moore
Project Title: Detroit Collection Corps
Project Description: The Wright Museum will expand its successful Culture Corps program to create a Collections Corps that will focus on collection stewardship activities such as cataloging, archival administration, and historic preservation. The Corps programs provide specialty training for young people of color, while also strengthening the Wright Museum’s collection.
Chatham University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Sheryl St. Germain
Project Title: Words Without Walls
Project Description: Words Without Walls, Chatham’s creative writing outreach program uses the humanities in reading and discussion series, annual publications, and community creative writing workshops to help rehabilitate vulnerable members of society.
Chicago History Museum (Chicago, Illinois)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Peter Alter
Project Title: A Youth Engagement Project at the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History
Project Description: The Studs Terkel Center teaches oral history techniques to Chicago youth and encourages them to conduct interviews in their own communities. The Center plans to create three new projects that specifically target Latino, Muslim, and refugee populations.
City of Asylum Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Ralph Reese
Project Title: Thinking Out Loud @ Alphabet City
Project Description: City of Asylum will offer an increased number of free public readings and discussions featuring a variety of authors, filmmakers, journalists, and intellectuals who have been exiled from their native counties under threat of persecution.
Entrada Institute, Inc (Torrey, Utah)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Annette Lamb
Project Title: Sparking Humanities Conversations through Context and Connections in Rural Utah
Project Description: The Entrada Institute’s Sparking Humanities initiative allows rural youth and their families to have more extensive and engaged learning experiences through pre- and post-lecture activities with meaningful humanities contexts, content, and connections.
First Peoples Fund (Rapid City, South Dakota)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Laree Pourier
Project Title: Dances With Words Youth Development Program on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Project Description: Lakata teens on the Pine Ridge Indian Reseration are empowered to become engaged civic leaders through literature, spoken word poetry, and other art forms. Participants also benefit from the mentorship of local school teachers and coaches, tribal leaders, and museum educators. Dances With Words continues to expand on Pine Ridge and plans to create an adaptable program for other tribal communities.
Fontbonne University (St. Louis, Missouri)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Benjamin Moore
Project Title: Bosnia Memory Project at Fontbonne University
Project Description: The Bosnian Memory Project is a humanities-based initiative that is dedicated to raising awareness about and establishing an enduring record of the experiences of Bosnian genocide survivors, especially those living in metropolitan St. Louis, which has the largest Bosnian refugee community in the world. Two additional high schools will begin offering courses that allow students to directly participate in the program’s research and preservation activities.
Foxfire Fund, Inc. (Mountain City, Georgia)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Joseph Stiles
Project Title: Enhancing the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center
Project Description: Foxfire will expand and enhance its existing heritage collection, transforming what is now a largely passive museum collection and archives into an interactive, informative humanities experience. The public will be able to learn more about Sothern Appalachian history, culture, and heritage through technological improvements, such as touch- screen displays, smart phone digital tours for the museum, and an expanded website that offers an interactive experience and access to oral history records.
Friends of the Odyssey Project, Inc. (Madison, Wisconsin)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Emily Auerbach
Project Title: Odyssey Junior
Project Description: Odyssey Junior is a humanities program aimed at helping the low-income youth of color whose parents and grandparents participate in the Odyssey Project. This model allows multiple generations to benefit from an education in the humanities.
Gallaudet University (Washington, District of Columbia)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Brian Greenwald
Project Title: Deaf NYC: Signs of Change
Project Description: Students and faculty from Gallaudet University create, collect, and research filmed oral histories of and with some of New York City’s senior deaf community. Through research, public events, and filmed interviews, this project documents the ways urban Deaf experience is different from that of other Deaf groups, as well as how it aligns and diverges from hearing NYC communities. The project creates one of the first group of primary sources of Deaf stories from the mid-20th century.
International Storytelling Center (Jonesborough, Tennessee)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Kiran Sirah
Project Title: Leveraging the Power of Storytelling
Project Description: As part of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the National Storytelling Festival, the International Storytelling Center is expanding its outreach efforts to underserved populations, as well as digitizing its educational products.
Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum (New York, New York)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Lynda Kennedy
Project Title: Crossing the Line Players – Bringing History to Life with Teens
Project Description: The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum will epand its Crossing the Line Players into a research and residency program that will allow hundreds of young scholars and playwrights to practice historical-thinking and research skills through the creation of interpretive pieces of theatre based on the study of primary and secondary sources.
Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government (Louisville, Kentucky)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Gretchen Milliken
Project Title: Cultural Pass Program
Project Description: The Cultural Pass program provides free access for thousands of children and teenagers to over thirty cultural institutions in the Louisville metropolitan area. The program allows and encourages local youth to engage with the humanities educational resources that already exist in their community.
Massachusetts College of Art (Boston, Massachusetts)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Lynn Brown
Project Title: Looking to Learn at Massachusetts College of Art and Design's Bakalar & Paine Galleries
Project Description: Looking to Learn supplements humanities and arts education in the Boston Public Schools by combining guided visits to exhibitions in MassArt galleries with interactions in student classrooms both before and after the museum experience.
Minnesota Public Radio (St. Paul, Minnesota)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Dave Kansas
Project Title: MPR|APM: Diversifying the Next Generation of Public Media Talent
Project Description: Minnesota Public Radio will increase the number of paid internships and fellowships it offers to a diverse cohort of interns and fellows. Program participants will work on news and information, music, and cultural programs that provide humanities content throughout the nation, highlighting the experiences of people and communities of color.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History (Jackson, Mississippi)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Stacey Everett
Project Title: Making Connections: Bringing the 2 Mississippi Museums to Mississippi Classrooms
Project Description: This program will allow students across the state to access two new Mississippi Museums through multimedia, connecting students to museum materials and persons of interest such as academic experts and those with first-hand experience.
Prime Time Family Reading (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Miranda Restovic
Project Title: Prime Time Preschool Louisiana Expansion
Project Description: Prime Time Family Reading is a multi-generational humanities-based literacy program with 174 project sites across Louisiana and additional programs with affiliate partners in other states. With NEH support, the program will be able to add 30 new locations and serve an additional 450 families.
Queens Borough Public Library (Jamaica, New York)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Fred Gitner
Project Title: Global Commons Humanities Fellow
Project Description: Queens Library cultivates and engages a diverse and intellectually vibrant community of scholars. The Global Commons Initiative will enhance its current humanities programming and workshops to further encourage conversations between scholars and community members on political, cultural, historical, and social topics.
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Aaron Cowan
Project Title: The Humanities Ladder Program
Project Description: The university will expand its Humanities Ladder Program, which offers high school students a student-centered, active-learning approach designed to encourage critical thinking. The program will incorporate university students as Humanities Fellows who will serve as teaching assistants and mentors for the high school students.
South Dakota Humanities Council (Brookings, South Dakota)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Jennifer Widman
Project Title: Young Readers Initiative Expansion
Project Description: The Young Readers Initiative will grow to include an additional 2,000 elementary students, including Spanish-speaking English Language Learners and Native American children of the nine South Dakota Tribes. The program ensures that each participant receives a copy of the year’s selected “One Book,” a reading guide, and a Spanish translation of the parent guide and supplemental educational resources. It also funds visits by the One Book author and the Young Readers Festival of Books.
Spelman College (Atlanta, Georgia)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Andrea Barnwell
Project Title: Internships in Curatorial Studies
Project Description: NEH funds will support paid museum internships for ten Spelman students annually. These internships will last eight to ten weeks during the summer and will complement course offerings in curatorial studies. Paid internships are a critical tool in diversifying the museum field.
Spirit Series, Inc. (Santa Monica, California)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Richard Strauss
Project Title: Spirit Series Northern California Expansion
Project Description: Spirit Series will expand to several schools in Northern California. The program allows fourth through eighth graders to study, co-write, stage, and perform one-act historical biographies. Spirit Series’ humanities-based learning has been proven to decrease student absenteeism, increase reading comprehension, and improve teamwork among its participants.
St. Anselm College (Manchester, New Hampshire)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Daniel Forbes
Project Title: Enhanced Humanities Programming as a Bridge to School Success and College Access
Project Description: Through its Humanities After School and Creative Writing programs, the Access Academy provides immigrant, refugee, and underrepresented high school students with an opportunity to build their academic skills, college readiness, and confidence as learners. The college plans to increase the number of participants, strengthen the existing humanities courses, provide new humanities courses in philosophy, theology, history, art history, and literature.
Texas State University - San Marcos (San Marcos, Texas)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Eugene Lee
Project Title: Black and Latino Playwrights Conference
Project Description: The Conference helps Black and Latino playwrights to develop new, unpublished, and unproduced plays, delving deeply into source materials and background research. Presentations of plays are presented to the community for in-depth public discussions of cultural context and historical implications.
Troy Historical Society (Troy, Michigan)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Loraine Campbell
Project Title: History and Humanities Hub (H3)
Project Description: The Historical Society will enhance the humanities programming at the Troy Historic Village for students on field trips and expand its ability bring youth education programs into local schools free of charge to a seven-county area.
University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Daniel Lowenstein
Project Title: The American Dream in LA High School Outreach Program
Project Description: The American Dream in Los Angeles program will expand to allow more underserved and first-generation college-bound high school juniors and seniors to benefit from its seminars, performances, guest lectures, and visits to local colleges and cultural institutions. Using humanities themes, the program helps equip its participants to be successful college students, good citizens, and lifelong learners.
University of Illinois at Chicago (Chicago, Illinois)
Matching Grant: $50,000
Project Director: Therese Quinn
Project Title: Toward Cultural Diversity Within Cultural Institutions
Project Description: The university will increase the number of paid internships available to graduate students of color in its Museum and Exhibition Studies program. These internships provide students with learning experiences that are essential to a variety of careers with cultural institutions.
University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, Maryland)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Sheri Parks
Project Title: Home Stories
Project Description: Migrant youth from local middle and high schools are empowered to write and produce their stories in digital formats. The program culminates in a community screening of the filmed stories these youth produce, which are then available on a public website.
University of Michigan, Dearborn (Dearborn, Michigan)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Sally Howell
Project Title: Public History First Year Seminar and Summer Internship Program
Project Description: The Center for Arab-American Studies on the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus will introduce first-year undergraduates to public humanities approaches and the study of Arab American history and culture. The Center bridges the division between the university and local Arab and Muslim communities by hosting an annual public symposium featuring research by leading scholars and students who report their work back to the communities with whom they collaborate.
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Matching Grant: $100,000
Project Director: Dini Metro-Roland
Project Title: Humanities for Everybody Program
Project Description: Humanities for Everybody (H4E) provides rigorous humanities courses to members of the community who traditionally lack access to higher education. The program has empowered students to lead more active and confident public lives. With NEH’s support, H4E will improve existing operations and expand its program to support first-generation college students as they bridge the gap between high school and their first year of college.