A two-year project that would establish a center for historic preservation at Bethune-Cookman University and that would enhance the program in public history at the institution.

The intent of this program is to bridge the gap between academia and the public through research, publications, presentations, and public programming while training the next generation of historic preservationists. In order to accomplish this goal, this project will assist in the creation of a Historic Preservation Center. This center will provide academic research (which includes preservation practicums) with public programming (which is geared toward community development through historic preservation). The creation of a new Public History academic program completes the foundation necessary to complete the overall task at hand. It will be combined the Swisher Library Archives and the Mary McLeod Bethune Foundation and Museum. However, the creation of a Historic Preservation Center will consolidate the work and efforts of the three entities in a concerted effort.

A collaborative partnership between Florida International University and Florida Memorial University to improve course content and teacher training in Spanish language and culture at both institutions.

This project will improve Spanish language teacher training at a Hispanic-Serving Institution in Miami, FL so that graduates are better prepared to teach in the culturally diverse settings where they are employed, primarily a Miami HBCU. Thus this project will help black Spanish-language learners at the HBCU have better Spanish-learning experiences and outcomes and reduce teacher attrition of HSI graduates at the HBCU. A team of Spanish-language learning scholars and instructors will conduct a needs analysis on learners’ and teachers’ needs at the HSI and HBCU. Then, they will redesign the Spanish-learning curriculum for black students, prepare and deliver new teacher-training workshops, and evaluate and modify the new curriculum for both teachers and students as needed over the course of the project. Finally, they will disseminate findings and pedagogical materials through a national teacher-training website, academic conferences and journals, and public teacher-training workshops.

A three-year project for development and curricular integration of a digital library of interdisciplinary teaching materials exploring connections between science and fiction.

Florida International University’s Science & Fiction Lab propagates humanities across the undergraduate curriculum by creating, storing, and disseminating portable course content (PCC). The subject matter of these “plug-and-play” modules derives from the myriad connections between science and fiction, in pairings such as genetics and clone stories; engineering and dystopian tales; computer science and artificial intelligence ethics. The Lab proposes to sponsor a series of institutes, wherein faculty fellows work in interdisciplinary teams to develop PCC. They integrate their designs into their own courses, and contribute them to the Lab’s digital library of teaching resources. With each institute, this open-access repository grows into a database of PCC available to FIU instructors across disciplines. Bundled in adaptable units, intersections of science and fiction form a starship that conveys humanities throughout the curriculum, transforming the undergraduate classroom experience.

A collaborative effort to assist faculty at Florida International University and area institutions to incorporate the Crístobal Díaz-Ayala Cuban and Latin American Popular Music Collection into various humanities courses.

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.

Engaging in Ethics: Promoting the “Good Life” through Ethics Education is a three-year project (2/1/2020 -1/31/2023) proposed by Santa Fe College, whose purpose is to expand ethics education at Santa Fe through initiatives that actively engage students in ethics and promote their civic, vocational, and humanistic development. Proposed initiatives include the design and development of Ethics Across the Curriculum workshops, a Character Education Certificate program, and Ethics Bowl events. Project activities will develop students’ abilities to think critically, express ideas clearly, and interact with others in a positive and productive way—capacities necessary for a “good life” that embraces engagement with the humanities. Additionally, the project will support Santa Fe’s commitment as a community college to educate students who are on diverse educational and career pathways by infusing a humanities topic—ethics—into fields outside the humanities.

HistoryMiami Museum (HMM) safeguards and shares Miami stories to foster learning, inspire a sense of place, and cultivate an engaged community. Due to the impacts of COVID-19, it is essential to maintain authentic engagement, be responsive to community needs and support our local community through virtual and accessible educational programming. HMM is committed to equity and access by being responsive to the community and differentiating our offerings; providing virtual & on-site programming for all audiences; securing ASL interpreters and closed captioning as needed; authentically engaging community stakeholders; investing in local community talent; supporting continued access to learning and resources in light of school adjustments and closings; and continued community outreach modified to adjust to distancing precautions and various needs.

A one-year planning grant to enhance an interdisciplinary concentration in health, culture and society.

In a time of what some are calling a “double pandemic” of both a novel virus and ongoing disparities exacerbated by race, our understanding of health and wellness, illness and disease and their social intersections is entering a new era—one for which humanistic concerns are essential. New College of Florida has just launched an interdisciplinary Health, Culture, and Societies (HCS) “joint-disciplinary concentration” that bridges not only academic disciplines in scientific and humanistic fields, but also academic study and practical experience in the form of community engagement and professional internships. This new program responds to both an emerging field and to the need for a structured approach to an area of high student interest and community need.

A one-year planning grant to create a health humanities minor.

We are applying for an NEH Connections Planning Grant for academic year 2024-25 to create the courses and operational structure for an interdisciplinary 15-credit Health Humanities Minor at the University of Florida (UF), which will be rolled out in 2025-26. The Planning Grant will support a small working group of faculty from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) and the College of Public Health and Health Professions (PHHP). We have already identified significant student interest as well as faculty expertise. This minor aligns our university with an important trend in undergraduate medical education. In addition to the core humanities areas, we intend to emphasize a critical engagement with public health, artificial intelligence, and religion and spirituality, areas that were highlighted during the recent pandemic and which will make our program unique. We believe it is our ethical obligation to offer such a program and that now is the time for a successful implementation.

A three-year project to develop five new courses and establish a new interdisciplinary minor in health humanities for undergraduates. 

Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters proposes a three-year project to create an interdisciplinary minor in Health Humanities. This minor will serve as a bridge connecting the teaching of topics related to health and medicine, typically rooted in scientific and biomedical disciplines, with the methods and aims of the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Faculty and staff in the College of Arts and Letters and College of Medicine will collaborate in the implementation of the minor. The minor aims to create opportunities for dialogue between humanities and non-humanities students and for faculty, increase enrollment in humanities courses from students outside of Arts and Letters, prepare students for future education and careers related to health and medicine, and strengthen connections between FAU and the local community.

A series of public discussions for veterans on experiences and representations of war, to be held at the University of Florida and at Gainesville’s Hippodrome State Theater.

Project designed to highlight the experiences of veterans in wartime situation using humanities sources as a means to discuss and explore those experiences. This project includes a preparatory graduate seminar led by UF faculty to train NEH Discussion Leaders who will then lead groups of local veterans in discussions based on 5 central themes. The discussion leaders will use humanities sources as a means to pose questions about the experiences of war in an attempt to make the experiences of veterans more visible.

A semester-long humanities course for veterans with three related public events to be offered three times.

Valencia College Professors of Humanities Dr. Sean Lake and Julie Montione are applying as co-Project Directors to this program, Dialogues on the Experience of War. Through this project, Professors Lake and Montione will develop a veterans-only course entitled “Voices from Ancient and Modern Warfare.” The course will be developed during fall 2017 semester and offered spring 2018, fall 2018, and spring 2019 before the end of the grant period. The course is organized to train students as discussion leaders in the content of Classical texts, how to connect these texts to current veteran experiences and in the skills needed to lead discussion groups. The course will be structured with a service learning course component, and students will be prepared to lead discussions with other veterans and members of the community. The program centers around three essential questions with related course material to begin each discussion, and a community activity for each topic.

An expansion of a 2017 Dialogues on the Experience of War project to prepare eleven faculty members to incorporate content and lead discussions about war and military experience in their existing humanities courses.

After successful implementation of the initial Dialogues on the Experience of War grant, Professors Dr. Sean Lake and Julie Montione seek to expand the impact of the project by training eleven faculty members to lead ongoing and sustained discussions in their own existing Humanities courses. Eleven faculty members will participate in a professional development program, designed to create academic content that can be infused into current high-enrollment Humanities courses. This enhanced Humanities curriculum will reach more veterans and more civilians, providing additional opportunities for dialogues facilitated by trained faculty. The most successful components of the initial award will repeat including the special veteran section of Greek and Roman Humanities (taught by Lake and Montione), along with the highly impactful public events, which are linked to the lesson plans and discussions incorporated into the enhanced courses.

Teacher institutes, Chautauqua public programming, and an issue of FORUM magazine on the topic of the Harlem Renaissance and its impact on Florida, American, and African-American culture.

The seminars, programs and publication in this proposal explore the historic significance and cultural contributions of the writers, artists and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance, in particular, Florida's Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson and Augusta Savage. These programs and the publication will be designed to provide teachers and the general public with the opportunity to examine and analyze the movement's multidisciplinary work, its historical context and significance, and its impact on Florida culture, American culture and African-American culture.

A television documentary, workshops for teachers and an educational website examining aging, tourism, technology, environment, immigration, diversity and other themes explore the 20th-century transformation of Florida from swampy southern backwater to bellwether megastate.

A public television documentary, a series of workshops for teachers and an educational website explore the 20th century transformation of Florida from swampy southern backwater to bellwether megastate. Aimed at both the general public and educators, these resources will examine major themes in the historic trajectory of modern Florida, including aging, tourism, technology, environment, immigration and diversity as Florida grew from a state of 500,000 in 1900 to 16 million in 2000.

Television documentaries, radio programs and other humanities projects as part of the special initiative, "Florida: A Sense of Place," which will examine Florida's post WWII transformation and its impact on state identity.

Competitive grants awarded to public television documentaries, along with radio programs created by FHC, will examine Florida's post WW II transformation and how its impact on neighborhoods, communities, landscape, built environment, and state identity. Programs will act as conversation starters for public programs examining the connection between sense of place and civic engagement.

Funding will support a wide range of programming including grants, workshops for teachers, an issue of the Council's FORUM magazine, public programs and a newly developed Chautauqua that will explore the theme, "The Florida Quincentenary: 500 Years of Florida History and Culture."

Public programs, teachers workshops, an issue of FHC's Magazine FORUM, and a special grants initiative will be created for the Florida Quincentenary, marked by the landing of Juan Ponce de Leon on Florida's east coast in 1513. These programs and resources will look at Florida history and culture from 1513-2013 from a variety of cultural and historical perspectives.

Four week-long workshops focusing on the Spanish colonial history of St. Augustine, Florida.

Two one-week workshops for 100 art and history teachers to explore the Miami Beach Art Deco District and its significance to the history of 20th-century art and design.

Located in Miami Beach, The Wolfsonian-Florida International University (a museum of art and design) and the Miami Design Preservation League, have created a workshop designed to immerse teachers in the surrounding Miami Beach Architectural District, and utilize the both organization's collections, facilities and expertise. This living cultural and architectural environment will serve not only as an historical resource for the workshop, but also as a pedagogical laboratory, a kind of "reader" to anchor the teaching of specific topics in American history, design history, and civic responsibility. The workshop's content will reinforce the connection between public history and effective teaching, as it also addresses two social science content areas : the history of the people and events of the United States during the Great Depression and World War II, and how art and design shaped and reflected the technological, social, political, and economic changes of the time.

Two one-week summer workshops for 100 school teachers examining Spanish St. Augustine in the context of American colonial history.

The two weeklong "Landmarks of American History" seminars outlined in this proposal bring K-12 teachers from across the county to St. Augustine, the oldest European settlement in North America. The seminars bring together the historical, archaeological and architectural resources of this nearly 500-year-old city with the leading scholars of the Spanish colonial period. The seminars are organized by the Florida Humanities Council in cooperation with the St. Augustine Historical Society, the Historic St. Augustine Research Institute, and Flagler College. Occurring June 18-30, 2007, the seminars will provide teachers with: - a comparative look at the British and Spanish colonial experience, - an examination of how colonial Spanish Florida fits into the larger narrative of the first 250 years of American history, and - an opportunity to use primary documents, historical archives, and national landmarks to expand and enrich their understanding of history.

Two week-long workshops, which are centered on the campus of the University of West Florida and in downtown Pensacola, illuminate the history of the Underground Railroad in the Deep South. Visits to prominent landmarks in Pensacola and along Florida's Gulf Coast, in conjunction with lectures and discussions with distinguished visiting scholars, will instruct teachers from throughout the United States on Pensacola's unique place in the history of slavery, slave resistance, and the Underground Railroad; they will also illustrate the critical role that African Americans and their radical white allies in the Deep South played in the national movement to abolish slavery in the United States. Discussions with faculty, scholars, and the master teacher will aid teachers in the development of innovative lesson plans that utilize essential primary materials, including pamphlets, images, and runaway slave advertisements. To fund these workshops, we request from NEH the amount of $147,192.00.

Two one-week Landmarks workshops for eighty school teachers on African-American folklorist and author Zora Neale Hurston and her formative years in Eatonville, Florida.

The two weeklong workshops outlined in this proposal provide K-12 teachers with an interdisciplinary exploration of the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston and the community that formed her identity and fueled her imagination - Eatonville, Florida. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998, Eatonville is the oldest incorporated black town in the United States. During each workshop, participants will examine Hurston's accomplishments within the context of the historical and cultural development of Eatonville and grapple with compelling questions about how this unique black enclave fueled her appreciation of folk culture, inspired her literary works, created her racial and gender identity, and formed her sometimes controversial views on race. Organized by the Florida Humanities Council in cooperation with the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community and Rollins College, the workshops are scheduled to occur over two consecutive weeks from June 13-26, 2010.

Two one-week workshops for eighty school teachers on the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston.

Two one-week workshops for eighty school teachers on the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), renowned for both her fiction writing and her scholarly research as a collector of African-American folklore, spent much of her childhood in the small town of Eatonville, Florida, which was founded by freed slaves in 1886. During this workshop, participants explore Hurston's Eatonville roots, her folkloric and literary endeavors, her participation in the Harlem Renaissance, and her final years in Fort Pierce, Florida. Historian Julian Chambliss (Rollins College); literary scholars Houston A. Baker (Vanderbilt University), Jill Jones (Rollins College), and Maurice O'Sullivan (Rollins College); preservationist N.Y. Nathiri (Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community); Chautauqua interpreter Phyllis McEwen; and Hurston biographer Valerie Boyd (University of Georgia) join lead scholar Heather Russell (Florida International University) in this consideration of Hurston and her milieu. Participants take walking tours of Eatonville and Fort Pierce, examine Hurston documents at the Rollins College archive, view an exhibit on Hurston and Eatonville at the Maitland Art Center, explore her folklore writings collected on the Library of Congress's American Memory site, work on curriculum projects, and watch a theatrical presentation of songs and stories that the author collected in central Florida. Readings include, among other works and resources, Hurston's masterwork, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and other writings; Valerie Boyd, Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston; and Robert Hemenway, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography.

To support the costs of constructing a new education and exhibition center where research project products can be disseminated to a wider public audience.

To support the establishment of an endowment for the production, acquisition, and promotion of humanities programming.