A two-year project to develop a two-course sequence in the history of Western medicine, disease, and public health.

This project will create a two-course sequence history course focused on the humanities electives required by Health and Allied Health Students. Currently, students enroll in general history courses to fulfill this general education requirement. Students enrolled in health and allied health fields have requested a contextualized course that aligns to their interests. The NEH project includes four primary deliverables include: 1. Two-course History of Western Medicine sequence with digitized learning assets. 2. Transfer agreement with four-year institutions for the History of Western Medicine sequence 3. Evaluation report including results of pilot offering and analysis from observers 4. Dissemination plan to facilitate the replication of the project at other institutions

A three-year project involving a series of curricular development activities that would incorporate the resources from local historical and cultural institutions in Richmond, Virginia, into humanities courses at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.

The proposed project would strengthen teaching in community college humanities courses by developing best practices for fostering relationships with and incorporating resources from local historic sites, art museums, cultural institutions, and religious organizations. Eight faculty Fellows from Reynolds in history, literature, art, humanities, and religion will work collaboratively throughout the project to help each other develop and disseminate local humanities resources, interdisciplinary approaches, assignments, and content--all aimed at strengthening humanities instruction, content, and transforming the engagement between students, faculty, and the local community. Fellows will work with local Scholars, who will present seminars on Richmond history (including women’s and African-American history), local art, literature, culture, and religion followed by visits to local organizations and institutions.

A two-year project to incorporate the perspectives of veterans into courses in English, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology, to support two symposia, one for faculty, one for students, and to create a digital archive of oral histories.

Wake Technical Community College’s (WTCC) proposed project, America’s Wars: Individual Experience and Collective Memory will render more visible the experience of war by incorporating the perspectives of veterans into courses within the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences division. The America’s Wars project will begin in July 2016 with four main activities: 1) faculty symposia led by scholars and experts; 2) student symposia with expert-led lecture/discussions; 3) incorporation of new material into English, History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology courses; and 4) the creation of a digitally-archived oral history. The faculty and student symposia will be led by faculty from Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, and North Carolina State University, as well as by war veterans and public historians.

A one-year professional and curricular development program in Asian American studies for fifteen community college faculty members.

The Center for Ethnic Studies at the City University of New York’s Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) proposes a 12-month program to expand the teaching of Asian American Studies in community college classrooms across humanities disciplines. This project will engage the local histories, cultures, and identities of diverse, new, and underrepresented Asian American communities in the New York City metropolitan area. The proposed project will begin with an 8-day Faculty Development Institute for participants to study and develop curricular materials for implementation in the classroom. The Institute will be followed by a monthly Colloquium in Asian American Studies (2016–2017) to highlight emergent interdisciplinary research, cultural production, and innovative pedagogy.

A three-year project to bring into the institution’s humanities curricula the study of the cultures of Florida’s Heartland region, from the history of its indigenous peoples and European adventurers to recent influxes from the Caribbean, the Americas, Asia, and Africa.

South Florida State College (SFSC) requests funding to launch a three-year, trans-disciplinary initiative focused on developing and enhancing local scholarship in central Florida’s long history of cultural conflict and fusion. Through A Sense of Home, college faculty and K-12 teachers in the Literature, Humanities, Philosophy, Sociology, and Psychology disciplines will have the opportunity to investigate the people and cultures of central Florida – the stories those peoples have shared through their literature, art, artifacts, social patterns, and collective experiences. These stories reflect more than the struggles and challenges faced by historical groups. SFSC is a minority-serving institution, and these stories form the rich cultural background of the very students who attend SFSC today.

A three-year project for the redesign and enhancement of two courses in order to provide historical context and literary readings on the effects of wars on nations and to engage in a veterans-focused partnership with the Pritzker Military Museum and Library.

McHenry County College (MCC), a two-year institution based in rural northwest Illinois, will create a series of courses, written and oral histories, and educational partnerships focused on the veteran experience, particularly the transition from soldier to civilian. The key element of the proposed project will involve the development of two new fully-integrated Learning Community courses under the title of "The Journey Home." These course pairings will provide historical circumstance and context to the literary subject matter and will bring to the traditional curriculum a focus on war’s effect on nations and their peoples. To enrich the student experience, MCC will engage in a collaborative partnership with researchers and historians from the Chicago-based Pritzker Military Museum & Library. The final phase of "The Journey Home" course series will allow the students to engage in an independent study project to develop the humanities topic of their choice.

A two-year faculty and curriculum development project on incorporating ethics into non-humanities fields.

This project will address the critical need to keep humanities content strong in community college education. The primary goal of the Encountering Ethics project is to integrate humanities concepts and artifacts into courses across Sinclair and expose students to the humanities in fields traditionally regarded as “outside the humanities.” A secondary goal is to help students make strong connections between their coursework and their learning through humanities artifacts. The project is designed to help students apply knowledge of ethics to real world context by understanding and engaging in the contemporary world. To accomplish this, faculty participants will create a module within an existing course that uses literature, philosophy, history, or art history to explore the theme of ethics as it relates to an appropriate segment of the course. The audience for this project is 25 full-time Sinclair Community College faculty who teach in a wide range of non-humanities based disciplines.

A two-year curricular development program to create introductory humanities courses with a criminal justice focus.

The project seeks to close a gap between the educational opportunities offered to students pursuing a Criminal Justice degree at the host institution by providing a targeted approach to the humanities electives these students are required to take. A core of faculty with experience advising and guiding student research has created a revised and discipline-focused curriculum centered on writing, literature, history, and applied learning that will expose Criminal Justice majors to a broad range of attitudes and responses, both historical and contemporary, toward practitioners of their disciplines and towards their actual practices. This core faculty will furthermore devise co-curricular activities and professional networking opportunities for the students in the program, work with student success coaches, conduct workshops with other program faculty, and develop assessment tools to analyze the project's long-term effect and success.

A three-year project to develop a veterans studies program.

Beginning in October 2017, Missoula College proposes to develop a humanities initiative focused on the theme of the veteran’s experience and its connection to the current conditions of American veterans and their families in our society. In keeping with the NEHs’ Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square and Standing Together initiatives, the program will expand humanities learning at Missoula College by infusing humanities-based sources into the study of a topic significant to many of the students in professional training programs at MC. The program will develop an interdisciplinary course in Veterans Studies and a series of collaborative seminars that explore the nature of military service and how society supports its veterans and their families post-service. As part of the seminar series, voluntarily recordings of the oral histories of student veterans will be archived at University of Montana’s Mansfield Library.

A two-year project to support professional development seminars with the goal of creating interdisciplinary learning units about trauma and collective memory.

Everett Community College (EvCC) proposes to create collaborative development opportunities for faculty to leverage the humanities in teaching themes related to contemporary issues of national concern. Titled, “Collective Memory and the Transformative Power of the Humanities,” this project will bring together 6 to 8 EvCC faculty members in history, literature, philosophy, English, anthropology, and the performing arts in discussion-development seminars using historical texts, classic and contemporary literature, non-fiction, and film, to explore how the public’s collective memory of major traumatic events is shaped and solidified, and how the humanities impact the framework through which Americans ultimately understand historical events — slavery, the Holocaust, Native removal — and contemporary such as military conflicts, sectarian conflict and refugee crises. The goal is to create learning units for students in Humanities electives and increase appreciate of the discipline.

The development and implementation of an annual common book program for students enrolled in Tulsa Community College’s First Year Experience Seminars.

Tulsa Community College (TCC) proposes an annual common book program (CBP) called “TCC Public Good-Reads.” The inaugural CBP, subtitled “Back Home,” explores Iraq War veteran Phil Klay’s short story collection, Redeployment, and focuses on trauma, adjustment, freedom, and other significant humanities themes intended to promote understanding of veterans’ experiences. The 18-month project is structured in three phases: 1) faculty development and planning, 2) course-related training, and 3) a pilot launching the CBP in 150 sections of TCC’s first-year experience seminar and 24 additional core course sections, culminating in a public lecture by author Phil Klay. The project will expand humanities teaching by creating humanities-based learning communities, incorporating professional development, and facilitating adoption of high-impact practices. TCC intends to sustain Public Good-Reads as an integral part of the College and for its annual events to have long-term impacts on the community.

A three-year faculty and curriculum development project on the history, culture, and folklore of the Antietam Creek region.

Bridging the Antietam, a project designed to boost student performance in composition classes and produce curricula to support writing across the disciplines, will focus on memory and its constructions as expressed through the folklore, narratives, and interpretation of history of the Antietam Creek region (western Maryland, south central Pennsylvania, and eastern West Virginia) Hagerstown Community College (HCC) serves. Specific grant deliverables include faculty professional development, a summer bridge program, revised humanities curriculum, a summer institute, and a digital archive featuring local "finds," to include oral history narratives.

A three-year curriculum development project on the art and architecture of Santa Monica and west Los Angeles County.

Serving west Los Angeles County in California, Santa Monica College’s Humanities Initiative at Community Colleges project will explore the diverse stories of west Los Angeles, using its visual art to move beyond the dominant narrative and incorporate the lesser known stories of color that have helped to shape the region. Working collaboratively with students and community organizations, faculty from the Art History program will integrate these stories into their courses as a means for engaging the college’s diverse student population and building community connection. Faculty will house these stories in a digital database that provides faculty and students with access to non-linear knowledge that can move through time and establishes a ground that fosters deeper context with the material. Once established, the digital database will serve as a resource for other humanities programs interested in using visual studies as a means for strengthening learning and promoting engagement.

A two-year faculty and curricular development program to incorporate the study of Chicago’s art, music, and history into courses for early childhood educators.

The integration of English language arts and humanities-based study of culture specific to Chicago into the Early Childhood Education (ECE) curriculum by designing and implementing increased English language humanities teaching and learning that is both relevant and authentic to the Chicago area. The project’s intellectual goal is to improve the quality of humanities teaching and learning through the following strategic objectives: (1) increasing humanities content knowledge of participating faculty and students; (2) infusing the study of Chicago’s art, music, and history into the ECE program through syllabus and curriculum development; (3) creating a robust community of practice centered on the teaching and study of humanities in ECE; and (4) improving students’ writing skills through cultivation of enhanced critical-thinking skills and promotion of more effective expression of cultural engagement.

A two-and-a-half-year collaborative project to strengthen humanities learning and pathways to higher education for underserved high school students.

This proposal to the NEH Humanities Initiatives at Community Colleges partners the Rose State College Humanities Division with the Mid-Del Public School District to create a collaboration that will strengthen pathways to higher education for students in the public school district’s two most underserved high schools. The project will expand humanities throughout the entire community in ways that are fully sustainable after the grant funding period ends. This will be done by creating the following at the high schools through extension of existing college resources: 1) a visiting humanities professor rotation, 2) a shared labs practice in reading and writing, and 3) an enriching cultural events attendance project.

A three-year partnership to incorporate the study of primary sources into community college courses and establish transfer pathways for students.

Anne Arundel Community College (AACC) will partner with St. John's College in Annapolis, a renowned liberal arts college with a curriculum focused on the most important books and ideas of Western civilization. Tutors and faculty will develop a Great Books curriculum and seminar-style teaching methodology, and AACC faculty will learn seminar-style Great Books instruction from the expert tutors at St. John's college. The goals of the projects are to 1. deepen faculty knowledge of seminar-style pedagogy using primary source Great Books in humanities teaching; 2. engage community college students in Great Books humanities learning around the themes of equity and inclusion, while at the same time enabling Masters level students to gain experience in community college education; and 3. establish pathways and financial incentives for community college students to transfer to liberal arts institutions.

The development of new curriculum for an applied ethics minor.

To better prepare associate degree students for meaningful careers in health care and technology, and to be citizens of the universal community, Trocaire College in Buffalo, New York, proposes, “Community and Mission: Building a New Applied Ethics Minor.” This 30-month humanities initiative will strengthen the college’s focus on ethical deliberation through creation of Trocaire’s first minor program for associate degree students. The primary goal of the new minor is to link applied ethics explicitly and deliberately across Trocaire’s general education curriculum and the associate degree programs in allied health, technology, and general studies. Through the proposed project, Trocaire will build an interdisciplinary learning community that will engage in intensive professional development, learn from other Sisters of Mercy institutions, revise three philosophy courses, and create two new courses to deepen curricular connections in the new minor.

The development of curriculum and resources illuminating the history of labor in career areas such as fashion design, retail services, and advertising and marketing.

"Shop Girls to Show Girls" an interdisciplinary project intended to improve student understanding of the historical contexts for the professional fields they are pursuing. The initiative is being developed to address needs initially identified by faculty during a pilot project at FIT. The pilot revealed that the inclusion of robust labor history in pre-professional course curricula can have broad value for a diversity of disciplines at community colleges. "Shop Girls to Show Girls" is grounded on the premise that the humanities bring essential context and a deeper subject understanding to pre-profession studies. By learning about the historical influences that have shaped the professions they will enter, community college students will be better-prepared for the demands of the 21st-century workplace. This knowledge will enhance their own careers and potentially empower them to improve the industries in which they are working.

Three iterations of a two-week summer bridge program for area students where they would research a topic on the region’s cultural heritage and produce a documentary film of their work.

Helena College proposes a summer bridge program for high school and at-risk college students to research topics that situate present issues of small-town, rural America in the context of the past; produce documentary films; and enroll in humanities pathways. Students will learn interdisciplinary humanities methodologies, principles, and debates as they select appropriate historical photographs, newspaper articles, literature, and moving images, write a script, interview local experts and historians, design graphics, and develop the promotion and distribution plan for their production. Three summer programs will focus on topics that represent under-explored aspects of the region’s cultural heritage: 1) a comparative analysis of Montana’s pandemics in 1918 and 2020; 2) the crucial yet overlooked role of people of color in the region’s formation; and 3) the impact of mining waste on community and ecology. The program will utilize community resources and strengthen humanities pathways.

Two summer institutes for twenty faculty members and ten students, centered on the emerging field of critical border studies.

We are proposing two year-long institutes in which CUNY community college faculty and students engage in interdisciplinary debates about terrestrial and maritime borders. Our institutes have three goals: 1) to contribute to course development and curriculum design in Global Learning at CUNY community colleges; 2) to support faculty in developing their own scholarship; and 3) to allow a group of LaGuardia students to learn about borders alongside faculty. Our first-year institute will explore political and terrestrial borders – past, present, and future. Our second-year institute will examine border waters, including their functions and the impacts of rising sea levels. At each institute, faculty and students will read scholarship in the field, meet visiting scholars, and take an experiential learning field trip. Faculty will then develop and share new courses or teaching modules on the topic of borders. Faculty will also share their own scholarship related to borders with colleagues.

A two-year project to develop faculty workshops and experiential learning activities on teaching students how to conduct oral histories in the community. 

The goal of Oral History in Interdisciplinary Community College Pedagogy is to empower community college faculty with the skills to bring oral history interviews into their own pedagogical practices through a series of year-long workshops. The faculty will engage in interviewing, deep listening, and analysis of oral history materials in their disciplines. Through this engagement, the faculty will explore how oral history practices can help re-center their teaching practices to the vantage points of individuals and community of the minority groups whose perspectives are often marginalized in published materials and media.

A three-year project focused on curriculum development and the creation of an archive combined with campus and community activities exploring a natural and cultural heritage site adjacent to the college’s Palamanui campus.

In keeping with the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “Protecting Our Cultural Heritage” and “Providing access to NEH-funded products” priority areas, Hawai’i Community College will engage students, faculty, and the community in a project that utilize a wide array of humanities-based activities in a newly formed Palamanui Forest Preserve adjacent to our campus. Combining experiential learning, we plan to study, teach, and share the rich cultural heritage of indigenous Hawaiian people in a region containing an important remnant of the world’s most endangered ecosystem, the lowland tropical dry forest. The project includes creating a map and digital archives of the ancient and modern trails and rich cultural heritage of the forest, establishing a cultural speaker series and workday for the community, and faculty professional development opportunities to develop curriculum that recognizes the region as a cultural heritage.

A 15-month project to create curricular materials on resistance of Africans and African descendants to segregation and colonialism in the late twentieth century.

The Mapping Resistance of Africans and African Descendants to Colonialism and Segregation 1945-1990 project is designed to expand on existing materials to improve the teaching and study of the history of resistance at Delaware County Community College and the broader region. Emphasis on resistance will bring the stories from civic response to armed revolt from across the African diaspora into the classroom via an interactive, digital modality that will resonate with students.