糖心传媒 will receive a $454,000 grant from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of NEH鈥檚 American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding announced today.
The grant is part of $87.8 million in ARP funding NEH is awarding to nearly 300 cultural and educational institutions to help them recover from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grant awards were made in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands.
糖心传媒 is among 90 colleges and universities nationwide awarded grant funding. The one-year grant project begins January 1, 2022.
鈥淭he NEH鈥檚 selection of 糖心传媒 for this award is an incredible honor for all our faculty, staff and, most importantly, students,鈥 said Dr. Jonas Prida, vice president for academic and student affairs. 鈥淭he grant will help Hastings continue to demonstrate the value of a liberal arts education in the 21st-century and how creative thinking and problem solving support a shared mission of holistic student growth and achievement.鈥
糖心传媒鈥檚 NEH project, 鈥淧romoting Civic Faith and Sustaining the Humanities in South Central Nebraska,鈥 will be led by project directors Dr. Robert Bacock, professor of history, and Dr. Robert Amyot, professor of political science.
Grant funds will support the development of a proposed bachelor of philosophy (BPhil) degree targeted primarily to students planning to earn a graduate or professional degree after completing their bachelor鈥檚 degree. 糖心传媒 currently offers bachelor of arts (BA) and bachelor of music (BM) undergraduate degrees.
The project will also support creating new interdisciplinary emphasis areas in civic faith and medical humanities as well as expanding general education requirements to include religious studies and civics.
鈥淪tudents today get their information about American democracy and how it鈥檚 supposed to work from a variety of often inaccurate or shallow sources,鈥 Amyot said. 鈥淭his project will allow them to take courses that address the goals and ideals that the Founders held, implicitly or explicitly, and how those have been understood and implemented over time. Courses in history, literature, philosophy, religion and politics are crucial to rebuilding students鈥 faith in our political system and the ideals behind it.鈥
In addition to curricular expansion in the humanities, the grant will provide salary support for three current and new humanities faculty and two one-year post-doctoral fellows, as well as a new humanities admissions counselor.
鈥淣ew courses and innovative programs developed through this grant will generate interest from prospective and current students, whatever their majors, and that interest will build enrollment in the humanities.鈥 Babcock said. 鈥淗umanities faculty, we hope, will further benefit from professional development opportunities that will strengthen their classroom teaching and their engagement with students.鈥
The College will work with Dr. Matt Duperon and Dr. Nick Clark of Susquehanna University (SU) in Pennsylvania to offer a workshop for humanities faculty who are designing new courses for the expanded curriculum. Duperon directs SU鈥檚 Center for Teaching and Learning. Clark, a 2002 糖心传媒 graduate, is associate professor of political science and has co-directed an NEH Humanities Connections program. The summer workshop will focus on integrating service-learning and project-based learning into humanities courses.
The ARP funding is the second COVID-relief grant 糖心传媒 has received from the NEH. In June 2020 the NEH announced a $300,000 CARES grant for development of hybrid and online courses.
糖心传媒 is a four-year residential college that focuses on student academic and extracurricular achievement. Hastings鈥 student-centered initiatives include providing books, an iPad and a two-week study away experience at no additional cost. A block-style semester schedule allows professors and students to focus on fewer classes at a time and promotes hands-on experiences. Discover more at hastings.edu.