Dear Colleague:
We welcome you to apply to attend our four-week Institute
Maritime America in the Age of Winslow Homer. The Institute takes place from
July 12 to August 8, 2009 on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s
scenic main campus and at its innovative urban site in historic New Bedford,
America’s premier fishing port. We will share our specialized knowledge
of maritime history, art and oceanography while we examine Winslow Homer's
paintings as a point of departure for our voyage of discovery into what Herman
Melville called “the watery part of the world” of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. We are inviting full-time K-12 teachers from
all disciplines and levels to join us in this inspiring, interdisciplinary
learning experience. We especially encourage applications from teachers of
history, arts, science, mathematics, humanities, English, economics and social
studies. Participants will engage in discussions and classroom activities,
informal conversations with faculty, travel and collaborative learning activities.
Scope and General Approach
Our two goals are to generate an understanding of the period historically
and culturally, and to discover the past by exploring and examining multiple
source materials, including works of art and literature, historical objects
and documents, landscapes, the built environment, descendant communities and
a range of historical documents in order to synthesize these various perspectives
relative to our topic.
Maritime culture, especially as understood in the broader context of American
history and society, provides a genuine entrée into multiple subject
disciplines. Few human enterprises have ever been so thoroughly interdisciplinary
as a sea voyage. For example, knowledge of mathematics and astronomy for navigation,
and economics for the commercial enterprise of the voyage were only the beginning.
Successful mariners developed excellent map skills, observed patterns of ocean
winds and currents, could predict weather patterns, and knew the behavior
of the marine animals that were their prey. They also needed to understand
something about the people and trading customs of those with whom they came
into contact in distant ports-of-call. American ships carried men of every
race and nationality, and signed new crew aboard at islands from Cape Verde
to Polynesia. The resulting culture on shipboard was heterogeneous, with music
and the decorative arts influenced by the traditions of people from many nations
and cultures.
Throughout the Institute we will delve deeply - by reading, viewing, discussing,
sharing ideas, writing in journals, drafting short papers, leading discussions,
and creating curricular materials - in order to consider our rich topic with
new eyes. What better way to understand that behind the traditional culture
and romantic imagery of seafaring lays a fundamental fact of American history
and economics that until the turn of the twentieth century, Americans thought
of themselves as a maritime nation? Even today, more than half of the nation’s
(and the world’s) population lives within one hundred miles of a navigable
waterway, and three quarters of American commerce is still transported aboard
ships. Our Institute looks back to the end of the Age of Sail, but it does
not imply the end of American seafaring.
While “Maritime America in the Age of Winslow Homer” can’t
cover every topic in four weeks, enough time has been built into our schedule
for participating teachers to examine works, first-hand, and to raise questions
for discussion and reflection with scholars as we visit superb museum collections
and historic ports in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine. For example,
we will take day trips to explore maritime objects and collections at the
New Bedford Whaling Museum; view paintings, watercolors and prints at the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston; converse with an art historian while viewing 19th
and early 20th century American art at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art
Institute in Williamstown; and view cartography collections at the John Carter
Brown Library at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. In Cambridge,
Massachusetts we will examine the Navigational Instrument Collection at Harvard’s
Science Center and also hold a classroom discussion while at Harvard’s
Sackler Museum of Art after viewing an exhibition there. During our one overnight
trip, we will travel to Portland, Maine to view several of Winslow Homer’s
great marine paintings and, by special arrangement, visit Homer’s studio
on Prout’s Neck before returning to campus.
Designed to be rich in contextualized experience, our Institute provides participants
with stimulating, active and experiential learning modules. As a project outcome,
we require that all teachers, working in small groups of 4 to 5, will develop
lesson plans and materials for peer presentation; create interdisciplinary
teaching materials for classrooms; solicit feedback from faculty and peers;
and critique and refine their own understandings on a regular basis. Final
curricular projects, developed by taking full advantage of multiple disciplinary
sources and perspectives, will be placed on our project’s website for
use in actual classrooms.
We are very pleased that NEH has designated our Institute a "We the People"
project for its capacity to “encourage and strengthen the teaching,
study and understanding of American history and culture through the support
of projects that explore significant events and themes in American history
and culture and that advance knowledge of the principles that define America.”
Structure and Content
Three interdisciplinary themes help structure our Institute. We’ve named
them Sailors and the Sea, Seafaring Culture, and Maritime Communities and
the Maritime Landscape. Each will begin from a painting or group of related
images, and will explore similar themes in contemporaneous works of literature,
maritime material culture, folk art and music. We will also examine the documents
and artifacts of the maritime trades, and work with scholars to bring us up
to date on current thinking about the historical topics, and on the modern
implications of historical events, especially as they pertain to the exploitation
of maritime resources.
At the start of our Institute, Visiting Scholar Felipe Fernandz-Armesto, Prince
of Asturias Professor of History at Tufts University, will provide us with
a lecture on the maritime background of the region and tie it to the larger
global maritime history. Visiting Scholar Thomas Puryear, Chancellor Professor
of Art History Emeritus, UMass Dartmouth will deliver a slide presentation
on New Bedford’s 19th century architecture, followed by a walking tour.
This tour begins at the piers, near the fishing boats and beaches, two of
Homer’s most frequent themes. The fishing boats of the working harbor
of New Bedford—the commercial port that brings in the most valuable
catch in America—and the beaches of Buzzard’s Bay—seashore
leisure sites—will be our point of departure.
Winslow Homer contributed to the development of the image of the heroic fisherman
in his paintings, most famously in “The Fog Warning,” which we
will view at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA) during our first week. That
view of the mariner, pitted against the potentially disastrous force of nature,
relying on the collective experience of his community of workers and on the
technology developed to support them, stands in stark contrast to another
Homer painting at the MFA which we will examine, “Long Branch.”
Even as he documented the decline of one kind of relationship with the sea,
he witnessed the development of a new one. “Long Branch” was among
the first paintings to document the relatively new phenomenon of the purposeful
visit to the beach as a leisure activity. So much a part of our perception
of the maritime landscape today, seashore vacations began in Homer’s
age, and he was an eyewitness to the practice he represented in this painting.
During week two we will visit the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute
in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to view its superb American collection and
to hear a talk by 19th American art scholar, Dr. Marc Simpson, who is Curator
of American Art at the Clark. Simpson’s presentation will center on
Homer’s realism and the profound impact his work has had on those who
followed in the realist tradition. Dinner and discussions will follow.
We will read and discuss Rudyard Kipling’s 1897 novel, Captains Courageous,
to understand how he captured the world of New England cod fishing during
the same period of technological transition that Homer documented in his paintings
of the fisheries. Like Homer, Kipling chose to focus his attention on the
older, declining (and arguably more romantic) sailing vessels of the Grand
Banks. Unlike Homer, Kipling sets his hero against the more modern background
of steel and steam as well; Harvey Cheyne falls from a steamship and the world
of ocean liners and railroads represented by his father, right into Winslow
Homer’s marine landscape of schooners and trawl lines. We will have
an opportunity in New Bedford to see both modern draggers and trawlers, and
a Grand Banks-style schooner of the period of Kipling and Homer and to build
a discussion around technology and the nostalgia for passing trends that is
often created in the wake of its implementation. We will contextualize “The
Fog Warning” and Captains Courageous with the 1887 Fisheries and Fishery
Industries of the United States, which will also allow us to begin a discussion
of fish stocks and their resulting decline.
Artifacts and documents in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum
will be our focus as we shift attention to the shipboard artistic productions
of mariners. Songs and scrimshaw as scholarly pursuit will be introduced by
the Senior Curator at the Whaling Museum, Dr. Stuart Frank. We will also contrast
the romantic picture of the fisherman explored in Week One with the more realistic
mariner addressed by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. in his book The Seaman’s
Friend. Having left Harvard and made a successful voyage around Cape Horn
as a common foremast hand, Dana returned to Boston to become a lawyer. His
career was dedicated to the rights of mariners, and this book was meant to
aid sailors in knowing not only their legal rights, but also the specific
details of the job they were obliged to do when they signed aboard a ship.
These topics will be augmented by the several Institute presentations by Captain
Peg Brandon of the Maine Maritime Academy who will address the nautical sciences
and marine operations; her other talks will address cartography, navigational
instruments, celestial navigation and the like.
When we turn our focus to the world ashore, we will see how Herman Melville
and Robert Frost, writers who frame Homer’s age, describe the magnetic
power of the sea to draw visitors to coastlines to ponder it. Frost’s
poem, “Neither Out Far Nor In Deep,” might serve as a caption
for Homer’s painting of the beach at Long Branch, New Jersey, as could
one of the opening passages of Melville’s Moby-Dick. We will read the
opening chapters of Moby-Dick, which describe New Bedford, and visit the Seaman’s
Bethel, described so poignantly by Melville, which still serves as the communal
chapel for New Bedford fisherman. We will also contrast Melville’s very
masculine world with the community described by Sarah Orne Jewett in her novel
Country of the Pointed Firs and in the poem “The Gloucester Mother.”
Jewett was a member of that company that lived a constant life on shore as
those around them came and went, and her perceptions of living in a New England
coastal town represent the perspective of the women and children who fascinated
Homer in several of his paintings, including “The Fishergirl,”
“Women on the Sands (The Mussel Gatherers)” and “Dad’s
Coming.”
In our final week, we will travel to nearby Portland, Maine to examine more
of Homer’s sea paintings at the Portland Art Museum and to confer with
their Education staff that has arranged for us visit to visit Prout’s
Neck where Homer spent his late years. This visit is a special opportunity
for our teachers to experience, the marine world from Homer's actual vantage
point. Scholar and art historian Marc Simpson re-joins us in Maine, continuing
our dialogue with him on curatorial aspects of Homer’s works. Upon our
return to campus, we will contrast Portland’s milieu with New Bedford’s,
where fishing is still the central occupation, made more complex now by a
decline in fish stocks that began with the successful commercial harvests
in Homer’s day and escalated in our lifetime. For information on the
Syllabus and Day-by-Day activities, please visit our Institute website at www.umassd.edu/specialprograms/mawh
Project Core Faculty and Staff
Dr. Arlene Black Mollo, Institute
Co-Director and Professor in the College of Visual & Performing Arts at
UMass Dartmouth. Mollo is a visual artist and educator with expertise in interdisciplinary
curricular design and teacher professional development. A Museum Educator
at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston for twenty years, she uses
“aesthetic scanning” to encourage viewers to ‘read’
works of art for evidence before making judgments about content or meaning.
Mollo won the national Reston Prize for writing, has directed numerous Summer
Seminars for UMassDartmouth; she coordinated Northeastern University’s
Martha’s Vineyard Writing Seminars. She holds a Ph.D. in Law, Policy
and Society from Northeastern University.
Dr. Mary Malloy, Institute Co-Director
has taught Maritime History at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole,
MA for fifteen years and Museum Studies at Harvard University since 2004.
She was formerly Curator of Exhibit Interpretation at the Peabody Essex Museum
and administrator of two NEH Institutes on Early Modern Maritime History at
the John Carter Brown Library. Mary Malloy is the author of four books on
American maritime history and numerous related publications. She earned an
MA in American Studies/History from Boston College and a Ph.D. in American
Civilization/Museum Studies from Brown University.
Captain Peg Brandon, Marine
Consultant, also serves as residential contact support person throughout the
Institute. Brandon is Assistant Professor of Marine Transportation at the
Maine Maritime Academy and she will talk about nautical science and environmental
issues. She has over 20 years experience as Captain of a sea-going Tall Ship
research vessel, with more than 40 educational and oceanographic voyages,
sailing throughout the North Atlantic and Caribbean for more than 100,000
miles. Brandon was Captain of the 106’ Hudson River Sloop Clearwater
for six years and brings applied knowledge of the maritime world to our Institute.
Capt. Brandon’s professional interests are International Ocean and maritime
law, high latitude exploration and celestial navigation. She earned a Master
of Marine Affairs degree from the University of Rhode Island and is a Master
Mariner.
Marcia Kessler is the Master
Teacher in our Institute. She earned an Ed.M degree at Harvard University
after 10 years as a public school teacher and now holds adjunct faculty appointments
in Education at Lesley University and at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
She teaches graduate courses in Cu rriculum Design & Assessment and is
also expert in infusing technology integration with academic programs.
Lori Bradley is the Administrative
Coordinator & Webmaster for our Institute. Lori is an artist and adjunct
faculty at UMassDartmouth where she teaches arts and technology education
courses as well as courses in the Professional Writing Program. She earned
an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and an MAE from UMass Dartmouth.
She will build our interactive site, assist teachers with digital resource
acquisitions and posting of teachers’ lessons onto our website, and
coordinate communication flow among all participants before, during and after
the Institute.
Visiting Scholars / Consultants
Dr. Felipe Fernandes-Armesto,
international scholar and graduate of Magdalen and St. John’s Colleges,
Oxford University holds the Prince of the Austrias Professorship in Spanish
History and Civilization at Tufts University. Author of over 20 books on Maritime
exploration, Fernandes-Armesto has received many distinguished awards and
honors. His expertise is in Global Environmental History and he will deliver
a talk on the Atlantic World that will provide a contextual framework for
our scholarship.
Dr. Marc Simpson, Associate Director and Lecturer of the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art and Curator of American Art at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. From 1985-1994 he was the Ednah Root Curator of American Paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. His work on Winslow Homer includes the exhibitions Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History (The Clark, 2005) and Winslow Homer: Paintings of the Civil War (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1988); and the essays “Sterling and Stephen Clark as Collectors of Winslow Homer” in The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings (The Clark, 2006) and “Homer’s Wine-Dark Seas,” in Winslow Homer: Poet of the Sea (Musée d’Art américain, Giverny, 2006). He has also studied the work of such American painters as Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeill Whistler. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1993.
Dr. Thomas Puryear, Professor
Emeritus at UMassDartmouth is an art historian with specializes in American
and Early Modern Architecture. Puryear will present a slide-talk on the subject
of 19th century structures and the town planning tradition that governed building
within the city of New Bedford; he will also lead us on a walking tour of
selected sites in New Bedford
Dr. Stuart Frank, Senior Curator
of the New Bedford Whaling Museum and expert in American Maritime Studies.
He will speak with us in several sessions on historical preservation, archival
sources such as scrimshaw and sea songs and on Melville’s life in the
whaling city of New Bedford. Dr. Frank is a Wesleyan graduate who earned an
M.A. R. degree from Yale, and holds a Ph.D. from Brown University in Maritime
Stuties.
Stacy Rodenberger is winner
of two Awards for Excellence from the American Associations of Museums as
editor of Looking to Learn and Look at Me, curriculum handbooks based on the
Portland Museum of Art’s collection and designed for teaching Language
Arts, Science, Social Studies and Visual Arts. She will speak at the Institute
with our teachers while they refine and present their final lesson plans and
materials during our final week.
Professional Development for Participants
UMass Dartmouth is willing to grant continuing education units (CEU) to participants
and the Institute Directors will convey proper letters of documentation to
participants’ districts or school boards on university letterhead.
Institutional Context
UMass Dartmouth’s campus was designed by eminent architect Paul Rudolph
and is situated on 710 wooded acres www.umassd.edu/about/rudolph/campusdesign.cfm. Academic resources include the University’s Carney Library which
has an extensive collection of books, journals, reference works, and databases
to which all participants will have access with their UMassPass. The University
Library supports and supplements all programs of instruction and research
at the University; it houses a book collection of over 450,000 volumes, 18,000
non-print items, and over 2,500 periodical titles. All online resources are
accessible 24/7 through the online catalog at www.lib.umassd.edu.
In addition, the project Directors will place selected reading materials “on
reserve” in the library for our teachers’ use throughout the Institute.
The library offers a wide array of services and resources that support research,
including audio-visual/IT classroom support and the campus Photo Graphics
department. The library’s web pages serve as a gateway to numerous services
and resources including access to electronic databases, interlibrary loan
requests (the Boston Library Consortium is particularly useful), and links
to other online services. The University Computing and Instructional Technology
(CITS) support staff will assist our teachers with wireless access and additional
computing services throughout the summer. Library hours may be limited somewhat
during summer weekends, although all library e-access will remain unlimited
to UMassPass holders.
Additional Campus Resources
The campus offers top-notch athletic facilities and state of the art equipment,
including a new indoor swimming pool, basketball courts, running track, tennis
courts and fitness center with weight room and aerobics room. Nearby, within
five to ten miles, are beautiful sandy beaches and recreational sites (www.umassd.edu/campus).
Historic New Bedford is a five-mile drive from the main campus. The city hosts
many festivals, ethnic foods, cultural events and activities. Please visit
our southcoast page for links
to local attractions. Boston and Providence, Rhode Island are an hour drive
from campus. The bridges to Cape Cod can be reached within a half-hour drive
from New Bedford. Participants are encouraged to share rides, initiate weekend
activities, indulge in long walks and social talks, and relax together on
the weekends. We will plan to sponsor some special “Sunday Sunset Sessions”
as optional events to regroup with peers and connect as a community prior
to each new week, just for pleasure Please see our Syllabus for day by day activities.
Stipend, Lodging and Food
Teachers selected to participate in this four-week institute will receive
a stipend of $3,200. Upon your acceptance into the Institute, we can provide
campus housing (2 or 4 bedroom apartment). Several weeks in advance of your
arrival we will seek your permission to make a deposit to hold a space for
you in one of the apartments. One half of your stipend will be provided to
you upon your arrival. You can anticipate the second check about halfway through
the Institute.
The new Woodlands Community on campus has a commons building that offers a
3,000 square foot function room that can seat up to 300 people, six smaller
meeting rooms and a café where we will hold all our Institute’s
workshop and study sessions when we are not traveling to various museum sites
in the region or in Maine. Woodland Commons is fully wired and will be our
Institute’s Learning Center during the summer. Very nearby, six new
residence halls are a part of the Woodlands Community; opened to upperclassmen
in 2005, these halls offer fully furnished, apartment-style living to the
Institute and are located a very short distance from the Tripp Athletic Center.
(See specific details, below, on lodging). Your access to all campus buildings
is acquired by purchasing a UMassPass card at a cost of $45. All participants
are required to purchase this UMassPass card that serves as your campus ID.
This card allows you access to all campus buildings, secures your Institute
library privileges and serves as a debit card, too.
For your convenience, we will arrange participants’ campus lodging in
Woodland campus housing, in either two or four bedroom apartment suites. All
suites are air conditioned and fully furnished, including one double-size
bed per bedroom, each with bureau, closet, desk; sofa and chairs, bookcase
and lamps in living area; one or two bathrooms, depending on size of the suite.
The kitchen area of the apartment is equipped with a stove, refrigerator/freezer,
dishwasher and dining alcove. (Please know that there are no pots, plates
or cutlery included in the apartments suites, although several discount stores
are nearby and suite-mates may prefer to make ‘group purchases’
to share costs of these items.) For your convenience, washers and dryers are
available on the first floor of these apartment buildings and there is no
cost to you for use of these machines. The approximate cost per person for
lodging for 27 nights is $1,235. This includes fresh linens delivered once
a week at no cost to you. In addition, if you would like to participate in
the campus food plan (breakfast and lunch only) in the Residence Dining Hall,
the approximate cost is $13 per day, for a total of $351 for 27 days. Dinner
costs are ‘on your own’. As stated above, all campus suites have
kitchens for those who prefer to prepare meals for themselves or with peers.
This approach may appeal to folks who enjoy the camaraderie of shared dining
and socializing.
There will be one required overnight trip to Maine in August during peak tourist
season to the city of Portland that has undergone a spectacular revitalization
in recent years. All participants are expected to pay for their own cost of
lodging and for food in Portland. For your convenience, we have booked a block
of rooms at the Holiday Inn by The Bay in Old Town/Portland; and the approximate
cost is $210 for a single room per person, or $155 for a double room per person.
This price includes one dinner and one full breakfast at the hotel. There
will be time after dinner to visit sites in the city, which stays “open”
late in the summer. An optional early morning walking tour of Portland Harbor
and historic sites overlooking Casco Bay is included in this price. Good news:
All costs for participants’ coach travel and admission fees for all
field trips & museum visits during our Institute are covered by NEH.
You will be “free” on the weekends for readings, relaxing, recreation,
and touring. A few optional events, called “Sunday Sunsets”, are
now being developed as a way for everyone to re-group socially prior to the
start of the next week’s academic activities (for example, we’re
planning croquet tournaments, sand sculpting awards, choral and folk music,
storytelling, etc). Please visit our website for periodic updates on regional
attractions and cultural events, too.
Application Information
In this section, you will find Application Information and our weblink (link
here) to the same information. We do encourage you to apply. Perhaps the most
important part of the application is the essay that must be submitted as part
of the complete application. This essay should include any personal and academic
information that is relevant; reasons for applying to this particular project;
your interest, both intellectual and personal, in the topic; qualifications
to do the work of the project and make a contribution to it; what you hope
to accomplish by participation, including any individual research and writing
projects; and the relation of the study to your teaching. For details, see
Application Information & Instructions below and on our website - www.umassd.edu/specialprograms/mawh.
Your completed applications should be postmarked no later than March 2, 2009.
Be sure to print a cover sheet and send it with your application
directly to:
Dr. Arlene B. Mollo, Co-Director
NEH 2009 Summer Institute for Teachers
“Maritime America in the Age of Winslow Homer”
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Road
North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300
We hope we have answered many of your questions in this letter. Please check
our website, from time to time, where additional information will be posted.
If you have questions about any academic matters, feel welcome to reach either
of the Co-Directors by e-mail or phone, listed on the first page of this letter
and below.
Also, please contact our Project Webmaster/Coordinator
Ms. Lori Bradley (lbradley@umassd.edu)
at UMassDartmouth with any administrative or technical questions you may have.
We are looking forward to a wonderful 2009 NEH Summer Institute together and
we encourage you to send in your application
Sincerely,
Directors, Martime America in the Age of Winslow Homer
Arlene Mollo and Mary Malloy
amollo@umassd.edu
mmalloy@sea.edu
508-999-9204 509-540-3954
NEH SUMMER SEMINARS & INSTITUTES FOR SCHOOL TEACHERS
APPLICATION INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS
Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers are offered by the National
Endowment for the Humanities to provide teachers an opportunity for substantive
study of significant humanities ideas and texts. These study opportunities
are especially designed for this program and are not intended to duplicate
courses normally offered by graduate programs. On completion of a seminar
or institute, participants will receive a certificate indicating their participation.
Prior to completing an application, please review the enclosed letter/prospectus
from the project director (or letter/prospectus downloaded from the director’s
website, if available) and consider carefully what is expected in terms of
residence and attendance, reading and writing requirements, and general participation
in the work of the project.
A seminar for schoolteachers enables 15 participants to explore a topic or
set of readings with a scholar having special interest and expertise in the
field. The core material of the seminar need not relate directly to the school
curriculum; the principal goal of the seminar is to engage teachers in the
scholarly enterprise and to expand and deepen their understanding of the humanities
through reading, discussion, writing, and reflection. An institute for schoolteachers,
typically led by a team of core faculty and visiting scholars, is designed
to present the best available scholarship on important humanities issues and
works taught in the nation's schools. The 25 to 30 participating teachers
compare and synthesize the various perspectives offered by the faculty, make
connections between the institute content and classroom applications, and
often develop improved teaching materials for their classrooms. Please note:
The use of the words “seminar” or “institute” in this
document is precise and is intended to convey differences between the two
project types.
ELIGIBILITY
These projects are designed for full time teachers including home-schooling
parents, but other K-12 school personnel, such as librarians and administrators,
may also be eligible to apply, depending on the specific seminar or institute.
Substitute teachers or part-time personnel are not eligible. Applications
from teachers in public, private, and religiously affiliated schools receive
equal consideration.
Teachers at schools in the United States or its territorial possessions or
Americans teaching in foreign schools where at least 50 percent of the students
are American nationals are eligible for this program. Applicants must be United
States citizens, residents of U.S. jurisdictions, or foreign nationals who
have been residing in the United States or its territories for at least the
three years immediately preceding the application deadline. Foreign nationals
teaching abroad at non-U.S. chartered institutions are not eligible to apply.
Applicants must complete the NEH application cover sheet and provide all the
information requested below to be considered eligible. Individuals may not
apply to study with a director of a seminar or institute who is a current
colleague or a family member. Individuals must not apply to seminars directed
by scholars with whom they have previously studied. Institute selection committees
are advised that only under the most compelling and exceptional circumstances
may an individual participate in an institute with a director or a lead faculty
member who has previously guided that individual’s research or in whose
previous institute or seminar he or she has participated. An individual may
apply to only one project in any one year. Anyone found to have applied to
more than one project will be ineligible to participate in any seminar or
institute that year.
SELECTION CRITERIA
A selection committee reads and evaluates all properly completed
applications in order to select the most promising applicants and to identify
a small number of alternates. (Seminar selection committees consist of the
seminar director, a schoolteacher who is usually a participant in a previous
NEH seminar, and a colleague of the director. Institute selection committees
consist of three to five members, usually all drawn from the institute faculty
and staff members.) While recent participants are eligible to apply, project
selection committees are directed to give first consideration to applicants
who have not participated in an NEH-supported seminar or institute in the
last three years (2006, 2007, 2008). Recent participation in NEH’s Landmarks
of American History and Culture Program does not negatively affect eligibility
or competitiveness.
The most important consideration in the selection of participants is the likelihood
that an applicant will benefit professionally and personally. This is determined
by committee members from the conjunction of several factors, each of which
should be addressed in the application essay. These factors include:
1. effectiveness and commitment as a teacher/educator;
2. intellectual interests, both generally and as they relate to the work of
the project;
3. special perspectives, skills, or experiences that would contribute to the
seminar or institute;
4. commitment to participate fully in the formal and informal collegial life
of the project;
5. the likelihood that the experience will enhance the applicant's teaching.
When choices must be made among equally qualified candidates, several additional
factors are considered. Preference is given to applicants who have not previously
participated in an NEH seminar or institute, or who significantly contribute
to the diversity of the seminar or institute.
STIPEND, TENURE, AND CONDITIONS OF AWARD
Teachers selected to participate in six-week long projects will receive a
stipend of $4,400; those in five-week projects will receive $3,800; those
in four-week projects will receive $3,200; those in three-week projects will
receive $2,600; and those in two-week projects will receive $2,000. Stipends
are intended to help cover travel expenses to and from the project location,
books and other research expenses, and living expenses for the duration of
the period spent in residence. Stipends are taxable. Applicants to all projects,
especially those held abroad, should note that supplements will not be given
in cases where the stipend is insufficient to cover all expenses.
Seminar and institute participants are required to attend all meetings and
to engage fully in the work of the project. During the project's tenure, they
may not undertake teaching assignments or any other professional activities
unrelated to their participation in the project. Participants who, for any
reason, do not complete the full tenure of the project must refund a pro-rata
portion of the stipend.
At the end of the project's residential period, participants will be asked
to submit online evaluations in which they review their work during the summer
and assess its value to their personal and professional development. These
evaluations will become part of the project's grant file and may become part
of an application to repeat the seminar or institute.
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
These general application instructions from the NEH should be accompanied
by a “Dear Colleague Letter” from the project director that contains
detailed information about the topic under study; project requirements and
expectations of the participants; the academic and institutional setting;
and specific provisions for lodging, subsistence, and extracurricular activities.
If you do not have such a letter/prospectus, please request one from the director
of the project in which you are interested before you attempt to complete
and submit an application. In some cases, directors have websites for their
projects and the “Dear Colleague” letter may be downloaded from
their website. All application materials must be sent to the project director
at the address listed on the program poster. Application materials sent to
the Endowment will not be reviewed.
CHECKLIST OF APPLICATION MATERIALS
A completed application consists of three copies of the following collated
items:
• the completed application cover sheet,
• a résumé
• an application essay as outlined below.
In addition, it must include two letters of recommendation as described
below.
The application cover sheet
The application cover sheet must be filled out online at this address: www.neh.gov/online/education/participants Please fill it out online as directed by the prompts. When you are finished,
be sure to click on the “submit” button. Print out the cover sheet
and add it to your application package. Note that filling out a cover sheet
is not the same as applying, so there is no penalty for changing your mind
and filling out a cover sheet for more than one project. A full application
consists of the items listed above, as sent to the project director.
Résumé
Please include a résumé detailing your educational qualifications
and professional experience.
The Application Essay
The application essay should be no more than four double spaced pages. It
should address reasons for applying; the applicant's interest, both academic
and personal, in the subject to be studied; qualifications and experiences
that equip the applicant to do the work of the seminar or institute and to
make a contribution to a learning community; a statement of what the applicant
wants to accomplish by participating; and the relation of the project to the
applicant's professional responsibilities.
Reference Letters
The two referees should be familiar with the applicant's professional accomplishments
or promise, interests, and ability to contribute to and benefit from participation
in a community of intellectual inquiry. Letters from colleagues who know the
applicant's teaching and from those outside the applicant's institution who
know the applicant's intellectual strengths can be particularly useful. Referees
should, if possible, be familiar with the work of the National Endowment for
the Humanities and the seminars and institutes program. It is helpful for
referees to read the description of the project sent by the director and the
application essay. If an applicant has previously participated in an NEH summer
seminar or institute, a recommendation from the director or lead scholar of
that program would be useful. Please ask each of your referees to sign their
name across the seal on the back of the envelope containing their letter,
and enclose the letters with your application.
SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS AND NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE
Completed applications should be submitted to the project director and should
be postmarked no later than March 2, 2009.
Successful applicants will be notified of their selection on April 1, 2009,
and they will have until April 15 to accept or decline the offer. Applicants
who will not be home during the notification period should provide an address
and phone number where they can be reached. No information concerning the
status of an application will be available prior to the official notification
period.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT
Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national
origin, sex, disability, or age. For further information, write to NEH Equal
Opportunity Officer, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506.
TDD: 202/606 8282 (this is a special telephone device for the Deaf).
Sea
Education Association
Woods Hole, MA
P.O. Box 6
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Tel (508) 540-3954
www.sea.edu
mmalloy@sea.edu
Mary Malloy, Ph.D
Faculty/Maritime Studies
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
College of Visual & Performing Arts
284 Old Westport Road
North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300
Tel 508-999-9204
www.umassd.edu
amollo@umassd.edu
Arlene Black Mollo, Ph.D
Professor of Art Education