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Table of Contents: Community College Historians in the United States |
The National Endowment for the Humanities and Community College Historians: A Program Officer's Perspective
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Glancing at a roster of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) projects that have involved historians teaching in two-year colleges leads one's gaze across twenty-five years of Endowment funding and through all the agency's divisions. The purpose of this essay is to provide a snapshot of NEH support for community college historians and to encourage readers to think about ways in which current Endowment programs could enhance their work. Since its inception in 1965, NEH has supported a wide variety of projects in history, literature, philosophy, foreign languages, the history and theory of the arts, and the humanistic social sciences. Although particular programs and, indeed, the major divisions of the Endowment have changed over time, the agency's basic mission--to foster the humanities in American life--has remained constant. In this context NEH supports the work of historians through funding for individual study and research; for group projects of faculty and curriculum development; and for public programs including films and museum exhibits that bring history to large audiences. The Endowment also supports the infrastructure of historians' work through programs in the Division of Preservation and Access and the Office of Challenge Grants. Recently, NEH has given special attention to the ways in which new technologies can support the efforts of humanists. Since the mid 1970s NEH has been concerned with the state of the humanities in the nation's two-year colleges and has encouraged community college faculty participation in Endowment-funded programs.(1) Community college historians have distinguished themselves as project directors and participants in institutional and national projects. They have led national organizations receiving NEH support and competed successfully for individual grants to study in out-of-the-way places. Although the number of applicants and awards has varied over the years, the range and impact of these projects has been enormously significant. NEH Support for Scholarship and Teaching and the Connections between Them For community college historians NEH support for scholarship and teaching can be crucial. Where faculty have heavy teaching loads, the vital link between teaching and opportunities for intellectual renewal can too easily be neglected. Endowment programs not only help to validate this relationship, but they also provide a vital support network for humanists. The work of the various NEH divisions is often intertwined, especially in community colleges. National programs can be connected to the efforts of the state humanities councils; academic programs and public programs may overlap and reinforce each other. In addition, many projects important to historians might not be readily apparent in a list of NEH grants. Some endeavors have been interdisciplinary and others have been large grants to such associations as the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the Community College Humanities Association (CCHA), or Phi Theta Kappa, where individual participants are not readily identifiable. One Community College's Experience The role that NEH can play in supporting community college humanists can be illustrated in a telling example. About ten years ago at Prince George's Community College (PGCC) in Maryland, a woman and her ten-year-old son approached history professor Lyle Linville at a public lecture, "The Iliad as a War Poem," about to be given by the noted classicist and gifted storyteller Bernard Knox. Because her son was so young, the woman wondered if they belonged at the lecture. But he loved mythology, she said, and had read every book on the subject in his school library and had persuaded her to take him. Linville warmly welcomed them, and the young man was given a PGCC library card so that he could read in the college collection. The background to the Knox lecture in PGCC's Masks and Myths lecture series provides a case study. In 1988 Linville and his colleagues applied for a faculty study project in NEH's Division of Education Programs. This newly developed grant category was designed to enable institutions to invite noted scholars to work with a group of faculty on a humanities topic related to their teaching.(2) The PGCC proposal requested funding for a study of the original purposes and current applications of classical Greek mythology in various humanities disciplines. The study's purpose was to provide intellectual revitalization for a faculty with an average age of forty-four years, a teaching load of five courses a semester plus summer session, and a full schedule of introductory courses in an open-admissions institution. For this intellectual revitalization the faculty proposed four weeks of intensive work with Bernard Knox and other visiting scholars who would bring alternative perspectives, followed by a year of continued writing and study. The results of this NEH "investment" were electrifying. According to the evaluations, the summer study was a brilliant success. It convened faculty from humanities disciplines scattered across the campus: history with the social sciences, English in its own division, "humanities," including philosophy, in yet another location and academic grouping. Participants used their core reading in Western mythology to delve into Finnish and Australian myths and to explore feminist perspectives in classics. Reports on faculty projects filled the pages of a college newsletter throughout the following year and beyond. Faculty not only integrated new materials and topics into their courses, but they also incorporated methods of analysis built on their discussions of modern interpretations of classical myths. More than classes changed at PGCC. The institution's entire intellectual climate was affected. Some participants began to publish; at least one returned to graduate school for more advanced study. A series of grants followed. NEH funded a new classics project for community college faculty across Maryland. Subsequently, Linville and his colleagues organized a national institute on classical Greece, also funded by NEH, sponsored by the CCHA, and held at Georgetown University in 1992. During this period the college also held a nine-part lecture series on Greek culture, which included Knox's lecture, attended by the young mythologist. PGCC went on to explore new topics and develop new projects, some with NEH backing. Historian Joseph Citro directed two projects on African American history for local schoolteachers. In 1992 the college received funding from NEH's Division of Public Programs for another interdisciplinary effort, "The Blues Project," a series of lectures, demonstrations, and discussions on the American blues tradition for the general public. As the stage was being set up for a performance and program, Linville met a middle-aged woman who described her excitement about the evening's performance. She said that she was eager to bring her grandson to the program so that he could hear the roots of the music he listened to. These PGCC examples demonstrate that NEH support can make a significant difference in a community college's academic programs and institutional culture, and it can reinforce key connections among those programs, scholarship, and teaching. All NEH support for teachers rests in an engagement with scholars and scholarly debates in the field. This connection to scholarship is necessary at all levels of education, and in public programs as well as academic projects. There are also interconnections among Endowment programs. Institutional grants, like the initial project at PGCC, can encourage participants to pursue further research and study. In many instances grants to single institutions have grown into regional and national projects, and "academic" and "public" programs spill into each other. It's not surprising that enriching humanistic study in a community college touches the community as well as the college. By extension, the Endowment itself is not readily compartmentalized. Its programs provide a fabric of support for humanists; the fabric frays when the threads of research, teaching, and public programs are distressed. The PGCC examples also indicate how NEH funds can leverage other support for humanities projects. For example, PGCC's Masks and Myths lecture series received funding from the Maryland Humanities Council. Other sources, including the state arts council, have also funded PGCC projects. Furthermore, the college has established the Humanities Resource Center, similar to its center for the sciences, to help humanists who are seeking grants. Institutional grants continue to offer support to community college humanists. Since 1995 NEH's Humanities Focus Grants have provided up to $25,000 in support for twelve- to eighteen-month institutional projects for faculty and curriculum development and planning. These grants have enabled community colleges to enhance humanities programs, most recently in projects linked to NEH's Teaching with Technology initiative. Community colleges have used technology-based projects to build connections between humanities and occupational faculty, to explore hypertext literature, to integrate World Wide Web-based sources into their teaching, and to engage in multi-institutional humanities curriculum development efforts. Community college faculty are also beta-testing materials within larger electronic materials development projects. NEH and Community College Organizations Significant support for historians has come from NEH grants to such national community college organizations as the CCHA, the AACC, and Phi Theta Kappa, the honors society for two-year college students. In 1979 the Endowment funded the National Planning Workshop for the CCHA. Over the past two decades the CCHA has provided a journal for faculty to publish their scholarly research and writing, and essays on teaching and curriculum. It has convened regular regional and national conferences for faculty to share ideas and has sponsored several NEH-funded National Institutes for College Teachers, including "The Introductory History Course and the 'New History'" in Colorado in 1984 and "Islamic History and Culture" at the University of Arizona in 1996. Since 1989 David A. Berry, a historian at Essex County College in New Jersey, has been executive director of the CCHA. The organization is the affiliated humanities council of the AACC; it works in partnership with the American Council of Learned Societies, Phi Theta Kappa, and other organizations, including the American Historical Association, to advance the professional interests and scholarly opportunities for community college humanists.(3) NEH has also worked closely with the AACC over the past two decades. In 1980 NEH funded the first of several dissemination conference projects--a series of conferences at which teams of faculty and administrators could learn about strong humanities programs in two-year colleges and work with a consultant to strengthen humanities offerings in their own institutions. Historians were active as mentors and as participants in these conferences; many historians went on to become mentors for other institutions, or to work with colleagues on expanded faculty and curriculum development projects at their own institutions. Later NEH grants to the AACC supported "roundtables" or policymaking conferences concerning the humanities. Under the leadership of President David Pierce and Project Manager Diane Eisenberg, the AACC tackled projects ranging from the role of foreign language instruction in two-year colleges to teaching topics in American history and culture, a part of former NEH Chairman Sheldon Hackney's National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity. Another noteworthy National Conversation project was a collaborative effort of the CCHA and Phi Theta Kappa. "Community Conversations: Toward Shared Understanding of American Identity" was a national project that ultimately involved conversations at more than seventy sites, many of them led by historians. Under the leadership of Executive Director Rod Risley, Phi Theta Kappa first applied to NEH for a grant to support a workshop in which faculty joined scholars in exploring the Columbian encounters in sessions preceding the National Honors Institute in 1992. Historians were among the scholars and participants then and in the subsequent interdisciplinary conferences that now regularly precede the Honors Institute. Phi Theta Kappa later received an NEH Challenge Grant to establish an endowment permanently funding the workshops and to support construction of a headquarters building, the Phi Theta Kappa Center for Excellence in Jackson, Mississippi, which was completed in 1998. Opportunities for Individual Study In addition to NEH support for historians through large grants to institutions and organizations, NEH provides opportunities for individual study through such programs as Fellowships, Summer Stipends, and Summer Seminars and Institutes for College Teachers. In 1979 the Fellowships Program was split into two competitions: one for university teachers, the other for college teachers and independent scholars. This separated applicants from research institutions from applicants with heavy teaching responsibilities and fewer opportunities for research and writing. From 1992 to 1995 the Fellowships Program offered individual Study Grants, a special category for faculty with heavy teaching loads.(4) Participation in a Summer Seminar or Institute for College Teachers is a relatively easy way to become involved in an NEH-funded project. Topics for these four-to-six-week programs change every year, encompassing all humanities disciplines and providing opportunities for faculty to study with leading scholars in a setting with major resources. The CCHA has sponsored many Summer Institutes since the early 1980s. In the summer of 1998, for example, George Scheper and Florence Starr Hesler of Essex Community College in Maryland offered, for a second time, "Center and Periphery in New Spain: 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish and Indigenous Cultures in Mexico and New Mexico," with a faculty of a dozen leading scholars. Typically, CCHA-sponsored institutes have about equal numbers of two-year and four-year college participants drawn from several humanities disciplines, but all seminars and institutes for college teachers are open to both two-year and four-year college faculty. Final Observations A review of the topics of NEH-funded community college projects reveals some distinct clusters over the years: a number of projects to enhance the humanities in occupational programs in the early 1980s; several Columbian encounter projects in the early 1990s; and a scattering of teaching with technology projects in the late 1990s, corresponding to NEH's initiative to use technology to enhance substantive work in humanistic disciplines in schools and colleges, and to help faculty to use these new tools and resources in teaching. Prior to 1995, when NEH funding was about $172 million, more (and more types of) projects could be supported. At the current level of funding (about $110 million), fewer programs are available and the number of awards in existing programs is lower than in the past. Nevertheless, NEH continues its work to enhance humanities teaching, scholarship, and public programming for all Americans. The products of NEH grants are the products of applicants' imagination, energy, intellect, and dedication to scholarship and teaching in the classroom and in the public sphere. Community colleges are often the nexus of scholarship and community service and outreach, and they have been funded in all divisions of the Endowment. The new NEH Chairman William Ferris has worked with community college faculty and organizations in the past. He expects that two-year colleges will continue to enjoy NEH support and to have a vital role in Endowment programs during his tenure. Please remember that this essay is only a snapshot. Hundreds of two-year colleges and countless faculty members have participated in NEH programs over the past twenty-five years. The projects mentioned here illustrate the breadth of NEH support for the humanities in community colleges, but the few programs cited above give only the barest hint of the wonderful work that community college humanists have done with NEH funding in colleges across the country. Notes Please visit the NEH web site at http://www.neh.gov, or call the public information office at 202-606-8400, or write to us at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20506 to learn more about our programs and to begin to integrate these opportunities into your professional life. 1. Arthur Cohen and Florence Brawer of the Center for the Study of Community Colleges at the University of California, Los Angeles, received NEH funding for a series of studies of the humanities in two-year colleges, which were distributed by the ERIC Clearinghouse for Junior Colleges. From 1975 to 1978 six studies of the students, faculty, and curriculum appeared. From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s NEH offered Consultant Grants, which provided consultant services in planning humanities curriculum to applicant colleges demonstrating commitment to enhancing their humanities offerings. Well over 150 two-year institutions received Consultant Grants. 2. The original project director was Sandra Kurtinitis, who soon left PGCC and was replaced by Isa Engleberg as project director. Lyle Linville's co-coordinator was Marianne Strong, professor of English at PGCC. 3. In 1997 President Clinton awarded David A. Berry the National Humanities Medal for his outstanding service. 4. Clay Lewis, former NEH program officer for Study Grants, reported that community college teachers submitted close to 25 percent of the applications to this program and received 25 percent of all awards--a total of 181 grants from 1992 through 1995. Community college historians also received funding in the Travel to Collections program (1983-93), which offered $750 awards for scholarly travel. |
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