National Endowment for the Humanities

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National Endowment for the Humanities

• An Overview of Programs

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The Humanities

• History, Literature, Political Science, Law,
  Sociology, Philosophy, Religious Studies,
  Languages, Multicultural Studies, Womens
  Studies, Sociology, Psychology, Art, Music,
  Drama, Film, Linguistics, Archaeology,
  Anthropology, Communication Studies

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NEH Programs

• Summer Seminars and Institutes for school or
  college teachers - participant
• Directing Summer Seminars or Institutes
• NEH Fellowships for College Teachers
• Summer Stipends for College Teachers
• Education and Development Grants including
  Teaching with Technology
• NEH Focus Grant
• Challenge Grants
• Preservation and Access
• Cooperative Research

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Summer Seminars Institutes

• Directors and Participants

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Description

• Seminars
• for college teachers - 15 participants with
  related interest conduct research under the
  direction of an expert
• for school teachers - explore a topic or set of
  readings with a scholar having special interest
  and expertise in the field.

• Institutes
• for college teachers - focus on a topic of major
  importance in the undergrad curriculum, team of
  scholars and 25-35 participants
• for school teachers - taught by a team of core
  faculty and visiting scholars, is designed to
  present the best scholarship on important
  humanities issues. 25-35 participants

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Examples of 1999 Summer Seminars and Institutes

• Seminars
• The 20th Century Bible Death and Return of the
  Author - Yale
• The English Reformation Literature, History ,
  and Art- OSU
• The Marvels of Rome The Classical City in the
  Middle Ages - Bryn Mawr
• Reading Ethically, Reading Aesthetically
  American Texts as Moral Example - Princeton
• Morality and Society - BU

• Institutes
• The Civil Rights Movement History and
  Consequences - Harvard
• New Sources and Findings on Cold War
  International History - GWU
• Anglo-Saxon England -WMU
• Authority, Text, and Context in
  Nineteenth-Century Spanish Realism - Duke
• Memory, History, and Dictatorship The Legacy of
  World War II in France, Germany, and Italy -
  Texas AM

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Example - Seminar

• Guided by a literature scholar, fifteen school
  teachers gather at a private college to read
  Dantes Commedia and to use it as a lens for
  studying the medieval world. Over the five-week
  period, seminar participants immerse themselves
  in the poem, and drawing on additional reading of
  relevant primary works - - such as the Aeneid and
  Augustines Confessions --and secondary
  materials, take turns leading discussions of
  specific cantos. Journal entries synthesize the
  participants examination of the Middle Ages and
  lay the groundwork for presentations at future
  professional meetings.

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Example - Institute

• An interdisciplinary six-week summer institute
  explores the environmental imagination and its
  literary expression in the US. Topics include
  the Thoreauvian tradition, wild versus domestic
  visions of nature, the place of place in
  literature, and the past and future of nature
  writing. The institute is designed to study
  imaginative literature and the genres
  connections with the natural sciences, and
  combines presentations by science lecturers,
  working authors, and humanities scholars. The 25
  college and university faculty have backgrounds
  in American literature, American studies and
  related fields ranging from environmental studies
  to art history.

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Seminars and InstitutesParticipants

• DEADLINE March 1, 1999
• Between 2,800 and 3,700.
• 15 participants working in collaboration with one
  or two leading scholars.

• 23 seminars and institutes
• Access to major library collection with time
  reserved to pursue individual research.

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To Be A Participant

• Request application material directly from
  seminar director
• Apply Directly to Seminar Director
• List of 1999 seminars is available
• Short application - usually 5 pages
• Must describe a research area that relates to the
  seminar
• Awards made to individual, not institution

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To Be a Director

• Four - Six week period between early June and
  mid-August
• Two types - for school teachers and for college
  teachers
• Two formats - seminars and institutes

• 60,000 - 100,000 in outright funds for seminars
• 100,000 - 170,000 for institutes
• Criteria - intellectual quality and significance,
  impact, feasibility

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Application Process - Director

• Deadline March 1
• 15 pages required forms and appendices
• Double spaced
• 2 letters of recommendation
• Award is made to the institution and must be
  signed by the institution

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NEH Fellowships

• For College Teachers

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NEH Fellowships forCollege Teachers and
Independent Scholars

• DEADLINE May 1, 1999, Notification by early
  December, project can begin Jan. 1
• contribute to scholarly knowledge, advancement of
  teaching, or general publics understanding of
  humanities
• Does not support curriculum, empirical
  educational research, or theories of teaching and
  learning that lack humanities content.
• Part-time or full -time faculty or non-teaching
  capacity
• Uninterrupted period of six to twelve months must
  include one full term of academic year.
• 6-12months 30,000 5 mos.25,000 4 mos.
  20,000 can be supplemented by the institution
  up to full salary

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NEH Summer Stipends

• Humanities Research

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NEH Summer Stipends

• DEADLINE Oct. 1, 1999 (notification by April,
  2000 - project can begin May 1)
• Must be nominated by college - may nominate two
  members, one of whom should be junior nominee
  (instructor or assistant professor).
• Adjunct faculty, non faculty staff and applicants
  with appointments terminating by the summer of
  2000 may apply without nomination.
• Degree candidates are not eligible
• Not eligible if have held a major fellowship or
  research grant during 1997-98 or subsequent years.

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Application Process

• Translation projects - 2 page sample - 1 pg
  original, 1 pg applicants translation
• Database projects - sample entry on single page
  showing the proposed format and contents
• 1 page bibliography

• Cover sheet
• Resume - 2 page outline
• proposed study description - 3 single-space or
  six double-space pages
• two reference letters on forms sent directly by
  authors

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NEH Focus Grant

• Meeting Institutional Priorities

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Focus Grant

• DEADLINE April 15 - project may begin Sept. 1,
  1999
• Enables a group of teachers, faculty members or
  other educators to work together to explore an
  important humanities topic and to consider plans
  of action for their institution, use outside
  experts
• 10,000 - 25,000

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Purposes

• Enable groups of faculty to engage in rigorous
  collegial study with reference to larger
  institutional purposes or specific curricular
  issues.
• May support a further stage of collegial work
  design and development of new institutional
  arrangements for humanities education or major
  changes in the curriculum.
• Allows faculty to work in collaboration with
  school teachers
• Focused curriculum development with faculty
  development as well

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Examples of Focus Grants

• To support a humanities focus grant on infusing
  issues on diversity into the humanities
  curriculum
• To support a summer workshop and follow-up
  activities on African and African American art
  and culture for teachers in South Bend schools
• To support an academic year workshop to bring
  together faculty and school district teachers to
  develop an articulated literature-based K-16
  curriculum for native speakers of Spanish
• A Foundation course for University Studies
  Introducing Higher Education to First-Year
  Students through American Studies
• Ethics Across the Curriculum - one year faculty
  and curriculum development project

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Design

• Identify a coherent sequence of topics or issues
  to be explored and provide a detailed list of
  texts and materials to be considered.
• Demonstrate a commitment from participating
  groups and individuals
• Potential for national significance

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Ideas for Whitworth
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Education Development and Demonstration Grants

• National Education Projects
• Materials Development
• Curricular Development and Demonstration
• Teaching with Technology

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National Education Projects

• DEADLINE October 15, 1999 with projects
  beginning May 2000
• Interested in Teaching with Technology Focused
  Projects
• Curricular Development and Demonstration
• prepare, implement and evaluate new or revised
  curricular changes that will serve as national
  models or pilot programs.
• Particularly like projects which are
  collaborative and strive to improve the
  preparation of future humanities teachers
• Materials Development
• interactive software that will have a significant
  impact on humanities instruction
• not textbooks
• sourcebooks or teaching guides
• usually a collaborative project

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Examples

• Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization
• Literature-based Partnerships Between Middle/High
  School Teachers and Higher Education Faculty
• U.S. Womens Progressive Era History on the World
  Wide Web
• Teaching Medieval Lyric with Modern Technology
  New Windows on the Medieval World

• The Spanish Colonial Mission Virtual Museum
• Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age
  Reconceptualizing the Introductory Survey Course
• Virtual Japan An Interactive Multimedia
  Exploration of Japanese Culture
• The Archives of Traditional Music and New
  Technology Musical Instruments of West Africa -
  CD-ROM

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Challenge Grants

• Institutional Initiatives

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Challenge Grants

• Library endowment, chair endowment
• Requires at least 3 dollars to be raised in new
  or increased donations for every federal dollar
  offered.
• Example NEH award 200,000 Match 600,000
• DEADLINE May 1
• Can begin raising matching funds the December
  before submitting application and have three
  years to raise match.

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Examples

• Faculty Fellows Fund for Medieval and Irish
  Studies and acquisitions for Northern Medieval
  Vernacular Literature
• Endowment and Equipment costs for new technology
  center in library
• Endowment of lecture series a
  scholars-in-residence
• To support endowment for academic and public
  humanities programming for research related to
  the International Quilt Study Center
• Endowment to continue and expand the colleges
  public lecture series and faculty development
  seminars
• Endowment for a program of distinguished visiting
  professors in the Center for the Study of
  Cultures.

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Preservation and Access

• Create, preserve, and increase resources that
  assist research, education, and public programming

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Types of Projects

• Special Collections and Archives
• bibliographic control arrangement, description,
  and preservation of archival and manuscript
  collections cataloging and preservation of
  graphics still and moving images and recorded
  sound collections
• Develop oral history collections of cultural
  importance
• Research Tools and Reference Works
• create dictionaries, encyclopedias, historical or
  linguistic atlases, databases, textbases,
  bibliographies, etc.
• National Heritage Preservation Program
• Preservation Microfilming of Brittle Books and
  Serials

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Collaborative Research

• Original research
• two or more scholars

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Description

• DEADLINE September 1, 1999
• Because of scope or complexity requires
  additional staff
• Research leading to scholarly publications
  breaking new ground
• Full or part time for up to 3 yrs.
• Support for scholars, consultants, travel, and
  technical support
• 10,000 - 200,000 with matching
• No textbooks, or research in educational methods

• Editions of works or documents that are of value
  to humanities scholars and general readers -
  previously not accessible or inadequate
• Conferences addressing a specific set of research
  objectives on a topic of major significance to
  the humanities
• Annotated translations into English of works that
  provide insight into history, literature
  philosophy and scientific and artistic
  achievements of other cultures

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Examples

• Two scholars will complete an edition of the
  correspondence of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett
  Browning. They will publish the results as a
  complete and fully transcribed CD-ROM edition,
  with notes identifying correspondents, dating
  letters, and clarifying textual irregularities.
  Database will be searchable by key word

• Two scholars of Chinese history propose an
  international conference on the social, economic
  and cultural aspects of the history of printed
  books in late imperial and early modern China.
  Firm commitments from scholars who will focus on
  impact of commercial publishing and marketing on
  levels of literacy, classification of knowledge,
  and creation of common culture for different
  ethnic and linguistic groups.

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NEH on the web

• http//www.neh.gov

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The NEH

• To promote progress and scholarship in the
  humanities and the arts in the United States