Volume 1, No. 3: March 5, 2004

Monthly E-News from Michael Bouman, Executive Director
Missouri Humanities Council

Contents:

Shaping Our Community Through Museum Workshops

If you're involved with a local or county museum or historical society, you might want to take advantage of two workshops designed to improve community interest. How a local institution engages public interest has a lot to do with the institution's ability to attract volunteers and raise operating funds. Interpretation is the key to success. Thinking about interpretation immediately creates a relationship between the people who run the institution and the people they hope to attract. Interpretation shifts the main energy of the institution from static objects to dynamic stories. The thrilling thing about stories is that they invite participation and create new meanings.

"If You Interpret It, They Will Come!" is a one-day continuing education workshop developed by the Association of Midwest Museums. The workshops will be offered in St. Louis and Kansas City in April.

The St. Louis program takes place Monday, April 19 at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. The program begins at 9:30 a.m. and finishes by 4 in the afternoon. Admission is free for members of the Association of Midwest Museums or the Missouri Museum Association. Non-members may attend for a $10 registration fee. Presenters are Lois Conley, Founder and Executive Director of the Black World History Museum, and Barbara Decker, Coordinator for School and Teacher Services at the Missouri Historical Society. The program will be moderated by Brian Bray, Executive Director of the Association of Midwest Museums.

The Kansas City program takes place Thursday, April 29 at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center at 3700 Blue Parkway. Presenters are Patty Moss, a Ph.D. student in history and art history who worked for nine years in philanthropic organizations helping historical institutions apply for funding; and Novella Perrin, Dean of the Graduate School at Central Missouri State University and an authority on issues of gerontology. The session will be moderated by Alisha Cole, Curator and Living History Specialist at the Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center.

Both workshops are offered in partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council, the Missouri Arts Council, and the Missouri Museum Association. For information, contact AMM at (314) 746-4557 or visit their web site:
http://www.midwestmuseums.org

Exploring Our Heritage of "America, The Bountiful" in 2005

Each year, as we circulate a new thematic exhibit in Missouri, we announce a broad program theme to stimulate ideas at libraries, museums, and historical societies. Our theme in 2005 is "America, The Bountiful." It is related to the "Key Ingredients" exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution, and it is concerned with the bounty of natural resources, the cultural issues that attach to those resources and their husbandry, and the people who figure large in the stories of those human connections. MHC grants in 2005 will favor this theme. Grant guidelines are at this web page:
http://www.mohumanities.org/programs/grants/devgrants.htm

Call for Chautauqua Host Towns for "America, The Bountiful" in 2005-2006

This summer wraps up the "Changed Lives" tour connected with the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. Don't miss the programs in Carthage, Maryville, and Alton, Illinois! Now we are putting together the talent for a new tour focused on historical figures who contributed to America's use or conservation of our abundant natural resources. This new Chautauqua will tour during 2005 and 2006.

A community that hosts the Heartland Chautauqua is shaping its own development. Chautauqua is a wonderful array of programs and experiences for local clubs and organizations, and the evening programs under a big tent are suitable for the whole family. Some of the best questions come from the youngsters! We hope to expand the number of participating towns in 2005 and have posted some updated application guidelines for community sponsors on the MHC web site (May 1 deadline):

"Changed Lives: Lewis and Clark Meet the West"

Our four-state, two-year project begins this month. By the end of the tour next year, we will have placed a mini-series of programs in 85 rural towns within a day-trip of the Missouri River. A circle of tribal advisors has helped develop the programs to insure an inclusive study of this national complex of stories. Programs will take place in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa under a $300,000 grant from the Division of Public Programs, National Endowment for the Humanities. Because of the program's approach to exploring multiple interpretations of the Lewis and Clark story, our project was highlighted in the NEH magazine, Humanities, as a "We, The People" project.

Schedule details will be maintained at this page:
http://www.mohumanities.org/schedule/changedlives.htm

Lewis and Clark National Signature Event in St. Louis

The Three Flags Festival, Missouri's first National Signature Event, officially begins with a press conference at 3 p.m. on March 9, 2004 at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis. A scholarly symposium on Lewis and Clark and the Louisiana Purchase will be held March 10-12 at the Holiday Inn Select in downtown St. Louis. Nationally known scholars will speak on the impact of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the later lives of the explorers. The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, the Missouri Historical Society, the Spanish Colonial Research Center and the Jefferson National Parks Association sponsor the event. For more information on the symposium, contact Bob Moore, at (314) 655-1600, or e-mail: Bob_Moore"at"nps"dot"gov.

A sample of the events during this festival include a symposium with Osage women discussing women's and environmental issues, guided tours of the historic "Creole Corridor," an American Indian Diplomacy Symposium, Spanish ensembles and the Chorus of the Prince of Asturias Foundation at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica, a plant exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden, a Three Flags Ceremony commemorating the original, a Drums along the River symposium, and a bicentennial ball. For more information and a complete list of events, visit
http://louisianapurchase.umsl.edu/

Corps of Discovery II, an interpretive exhibit produced by the National Park Service, will be in Forest Park. Also in Forest Park will be Lewis and Clark: The National Bicentennial Exhibit at the Missouri History Museum and the Osage Art Exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum. To purchase timed tickets for either event, call (314) 721-0072.

Home Schoolers and Other Faculty Help Shape Our Community

A recent announcement from The National Endowment for the Humanities illustrates the serious national purpose of assuring that teachers of the humanities -- at every level -- have opportunities to improve their knowledge and skill. A special NEH grant program for this purpose has an April 19 deadline.

The National Endowment for the Humanities supports grants for Faculty Humanities Workshops to strengthen teachers' knowledge, understanding and classroom skills in history, literature, foreign languages and cultures and other areas of the humanities in United States K-12 and college classrooms. Grants for Faculty Humanities Workshops, typically of one year to eighteen months in duration, support local and regional professional development for K-12 teachers and faculty at post-secondary institutions. Proposals to provide teachers with limited access to professional development in the humanities are encouraged. These workshops may include teachers at charter schools, parents who home school, private license school faculty, and community college faculty.

The NEH staff encourages consultation with program staff prior to submitting an application.

Application deadline: April 19, 2004
Funding available: up to $30,000 for projects serving a single institution; up to $75,000 for regional or multi-institutional programs

Guidelines and application forms are available from the NEH Web site at http://www.neh.gov/grants/index.html

For more information about this grant opportunity, or if you have ideas about developing a project, please e-mail, write or call:

Division of Education Programs
National Endowment for the Humanities,
Room 302
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20506
Phone: 202/606-8380
FAX: 202/606-8394
e-mail: education@neh.gov
TDD (for hearing impaired only) 202/606-8282

Recent MHC Grant Awards

The Lewis and Clark bicentennial dominates the thinking of most local organizations that received support recently. They are:

Schedule details for these programs will be posted on the MHC web site at:
http://www.mohumanities.org/schedule/index.htm

"Musings From Montana"

Our organization is developing ideas for programs on "We, The People," which will explore the tapestry of human cultures and values that make up our national "We," and the ideals and civic values that represent the best of what we are as a nation. To begin this series of vignettes, we offer a letter from Springfield businesswoman Nancy Brown Dornan, who has served on the board of the Missouri Humanities Council for the past six years:
http://www.mohumanities.org/E-News/March04/MontanaMusing.htm

--Michael Bouman

 

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Published monthly by the Missouri Humanities Council, a tax-exempt, non-profit organization affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities, a Federal agency.
http://www.mohumanities.org
Phone: (800) 357-0909
Fax: (314) 781-9681
543 Hanley Industrial Court
Suite 201
St. Louis, MO 63144