Director's Letter
Click Here for PDF
Director: Richard Newman, Rochester Institute of Technology
The Abolitionist Movement: Fighting Slavery and Racial Injustice From the Revolution to the Civil War.
Director's Letter--
Dear Colleague,
Thank you for your interest in “The Abolitionist Movement: Fighting Slavery and Racial Injustice from the Revolution to the Civil War,” a Summer Seminar for School Teachers sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and hosted by the Library Company of Philadelphia. This year’s seminar will be held at the Library Company from Sunday, June 30th through Friday, July 26th, 2013. I am delighted to be directing the seminar for the fifth time. It last ran in 2012 with great success! Many of the people who have attended in previous years still keep in touch with each other and we all share stories of teaching triumphs, new career paths, and future plans. I very much look forward to working with a new set of teaching professionals in 2013 and hope you will consider applying to the seminar.
To give you a sense of our goals and activities, please look through the information provided in this letter. It provides information on the seminar’s daily location, participants’ housing, some of our weekly readings, guest scholars and field trips, and the application process. I would also encourage you to consult our other links on our website for more detailed information:
http://www.librarycompany.org/neh
Of course, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at rsngsm@rit.edu.
Let me begin by telling you a bit about myself. I have been studying the abolitionist movement for over fifteen years, working not merely in academic settings but with colleagues at the high school and middle school levels, at museums, and at public re-enactments of famous abolitionist debates in Connecticut, Ohio and Virginia. My most recent book, Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church and the Black Founding Fathers (NYU Press), examined the life and times of noted African American preacher and reformer Richard Allen. As a scholar, teacher, and educational consultant, I feel strongly about reaching beyond the college classroom and working with colleagues like you to enliven the study of history. I anticipate holding a lively four-week seminar on the abolitionist movement in one of the nation’s great cities, with discussions on such issues as using primary sources in the classroom and developing innovative teaching methods. To bring abolitionism alive, we will also welcome several guest lecturers to our seminar and take fieldtrips to some famous abolitionist sites in the greater Philadelphia area, including Gettysburg, Mother Bethel Church, and less familiar urban locales on the famed Underground Railroad.
This is a wonderful moment to re-examine the abolitionist movement. Not only are there more books coming out on the subject than ever before but there are now many new collections of primary sources available for classroom use -- and many good web-sites too. Moreover, slavery and abolitionism continue to make headlines in papers around the country, as museums open brand-new exhibits on the institution of slavery, local communities re-examine their role in the Underground Railroad, and television documentaries focus on the importance of slavery and abolitionist movements in early America. I hope to provide overviews of this new and exciting work while also discussing the challenges of teaching abolitionism to today’s students.
Indeed, the seminar’s main goal is to integrate new scholarly perspectives on abolitionism into classic interpretations of the movement, with a central focus on the use of original documents in the classroom. We will ask several broad questions in our daily sessions and seek your input on the best answers. Why did abolition succeed in northern states after the Revolution but fail in southern locales? Why did abolitionists divide over women’s role within the antislavery movement? Was Abraham Lincoln an abolitionist – and did his call for a “new birth of freedom” apply to northern as well as southern states? Just as these and other questions continue to animate abolitionist scholarship, so too they will form a consistent thread in our seminar.
Seminar Readings and Guests… Field Trips… Weekly Topics…
In surveying abolitionist history from the American Revolution to the Civil War, we will focus on several key themes, each with readings from both classic and recent studies of the movement, as well as a rich array of primary documents. I look forward to having wide-ranging discussions not only about these particular dimensions of abolitionist history but about which readings and primary source documents may be useful in your classroom. I expect you to keep up with daily readings, contribute to discussion sessions and prepare a brief project that relates either to your research interests or teaching modules. To enhance your studies, I will provide ample reading time as well as opportunities to research and discover documents in the Library Company's wonderful abolitionist archives. In addition, knowing that many of you need to take continuing education or graduate credits, I will be happy to furnish letters to officials at your home institution explaining your contributions to the seminar.
Here is the breakdown of weekly topics, fieldtrips and some of the readings we will examine:
During the first week, we will consider the rise of early abolitionist movements following the American Revolution, with a focus on the gradual abolition strategies that appear quite distinct from the fiery antislavery appeals of the pre-Civil War years. How and why did gradual abolitionism take root in northern states following American Independence? Why did even gradualism (with its moderate appeals and tactics) fail in the South? And how did abolitionists view the prospect of slave rebellion in Haiti (which resulted in the formation of the first black republic in the western hemisphere) during the 1790s? After an introductory session on the religious and political background of the earliest antislavery movements (with selections from David Brion Davis’ classic study of early abolitionist philosophy and Gary Nash and Jean Soderlund’s book on slavery’s demise in Pennsylvania), we will focus on the gradualist tactics and strategies employed by first-generation abolitionists. Our secondary readings will include selections from my own book on the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS), Joseph Ellis’ work on George Washington’s shifting views on emancipation in Virginia, and Laurent Dubois’ prize-winning book on the Haitian Rebellion. Here we will also ask you why early reformers utilized gradualist tactics and strategies in the first place.
Professor Maurice Jackson of Georgetown University will visit our seminar in the first week to discuss the impact of Quaker reformers on the early American antislavery movement. A dynamic scholar (who is working on a history of African Americans in Washington, D.C.), Professor Jacksion will help seminar participants understand the global dimensions of Quaker antislavery activity in the era of the American Revolution. He will also broaden our understanding of early abolitionism by examining the movement’s triumphs (such as ending the overseas slave trade in Anglo-American culture) and failures (watching American slavery grow in the South and Southwest after 1800).
Our first field trip will be to Independence Hall at Independence National Historical Park, which served not only as the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence but also of America’s first abolition act. For it was in that very building in 1780 that Pennsylvania legislators passed a gradual emancipation bill for the Quaker State. By juxtaposing these two issues in a site visit (the Declaration and the abolition act) you will see just how idealistic were the goals of the early abolition movement.
In week two, we will examine more closely African-American struggles for justice between the Revolution and Civil War. Although this is a large timeframe, our aim is to illuminate the longstanding presence and significance of black abolitionists in American culture. Indeed, our framing questions ask, what tactical roles did African Americans play between the Revolutionary era and Civil War, and how did black protest influence the rise of a more radical abolitionist movement after 1830, one which rejected gradualist tactics and strategies? Here, you will focus on the pamphleteering genre as a key vehicle for northern black protest. While scholars have long known about the significance of slave narratives, they have traditionally placed less emphasis on pamphlets of protest. Yet because black pamphleteers remained more independent of white editors than many slave narrators, their documents illuminate a much wider range of issues, from justifications of physically defending fugitive slaves to anti-discrimination efforts in northern communities. The recent publication of many of these pamphlets makes them wonderful tools for classroom discussions about the hopes and tactics of black abolitionists. Among other things, we will read Richard Allen and Absalom Jones' Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People, the first African-American publication to receive copyright protection from the federal government (in 1794), David Walker's 1829 Appeal, the militant attack on both southern slavery and efforts to colonize free blacks; and Martin Delaney's 1852 essay, “The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered,” which many scholars consider the first black nationalist document.
Excerpts from several scholarly readings will contextualize the world in which these black pamphleteers operated. Shane White’s book Stories of Freedom in Black New York will highlight black legal challenges to segregation in post-Revolutionary New York City, while chapters from Julie Winch’s prize-winning biography of James Forten, one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest men of color and an inspiration to William Lloyd Garrison, and Gary Nash’s much-praised portrait of Afro-Philadelphia will illuminate the making of a black abolitionist community in the City of Brotherly Love.
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, professor of history at the University of Delaware and Director of the Afro-Americana Program at the Library Company, will visit the seminar during week two to discuss black resistance and the roots of the Underground Railroad in early American history and memory. Was the Underground Railroad an organized body of activists dedicated to black freedom or a sporadic network of reformers? In what ways did fugitive slaves and their allies politicize the slavery issue in the years leading to the Civil War? Professor Dunbar will pay particular attention to the gripping story of Oney Judge, who escaped to freedom in the 1790s after being brought to Philadelphia with President George Washington’s enslaved labor force. She was never recaptured.
Our second field trip will take you on a tour of Underground Railroad sites in Philadelphia, which culminates in a visit to Mother Bethel Church, which Frederick Douglass once hailed as perhaps the most important site of northern black protest. Founded by Philadelphian Richard Allen in the 1790s after segregated seating policies had been instituted at a white Methodist church, Mother Bethel has hosted free black conventions, hidden fugitive slaves, and stood as a monument to black autonomy. It remains the longest continuously-owned parcel of property by free blacks in the United States.
In week three, the seminar will turn to the theme of abolitionist transformations before the Civil War. By this time, you will have learned of abolition’s Revolutionary-era roots in northern states and African Americans’ longstanding presence in the movement. Now you will explore the radicalization and fragmentation of antebellum abolitionism. Although never a monolithic entity, abolitionism by the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s changed as never before. Here we will ask questions common to virtually all social movements: How can reformers sustain a protest movement that has not reached its main goal – ending southern slavery? Are confrontational tactics ever justified if moderate aims fail? And how do reformers integrate new activists and ideologies into their movement over time? After reading book excerpts on the abolition movement’s radicalization after 1830 (including James Stewart’s Holy Warriors), our seminar will focus on two important sub-themes: debates over the efficacy of physically defending fugitive slaves and female abolitionists’ role in the movement. Arguments about fugitive slave defenses often divided abolitionists, many of whom believed in moral suasion tactics. How far could reformers go to keep an enslaved person from bondage? The literature – both primary sources and scholarly accounts – is particularly rich on all sides of this issue. We will read selections from William Still’s The Underground Railroad (1871), which recounts aid rendered to fugitive slaves by the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee. We will also examine Albert Von Frank's book The Trials of Anthony Burns for a look at a famous confrontation between abolitionists and slave catchers in Boston in 1854.
Regarding female abolitionists, we will examine how women became a core constituency of the movement between the 1830s and 1860s (contrary to abolition’s earliest years, when no female members could join the PAS) and why their presence proved divisive. Women were a vibrant presence in antebellum abolitionism – they procured the majority of signatures to the antislavery petitions that so divided the American Congress during the 1830s and 1840s. Our readings here will include selections from Susan Zaeske’s Signatures of Citizenship, which details women’s incredible petition-gathering work in several northern communities, Maria Stewart’s 1835 essay on black women’s activism, and parts of Lydia Maria Child’s book, An Appeal in favor of that Class of Americans called Africans.
Professor Stacey Robertson, author of a ground-breaking new book on antislavery women in the Midwest (entitled Breaking the Chains) will visit the seminar to discuss female abolitionism. Focusing on women’s work in the Liberty and Free Soil parties in the Old Northwest (today’s Midwest), she will show participants how women balanced concerns for racial justice with notions of their own civic equality. She will remain for a working lunch to discuss how best to use the writings of antislavery women in classes on American reformers and the Civil War era.
During our final week, we will examine the impact of the abolitionist movement on emancipation politics during the Civil War era. Once again, this is a broad topic of consideration. We will narrow our focus by juxtaposing two abolitionist objectives: the effort to use the Civil War as a way to destroy southern slavery and the simultaneous attempt to destroy racial prejudice in northern states. On the first matter, you will re-examine one of the classic debates about the Civil War: Did abolitionists – particularly African Americans – influence the Union’s emancipation policies? Or was Abraham Lincoln primarily responsible for putting southern emancipation on the Union’s agenda? We will frame discussion of these questions with readings from Ira Berlin’s Slaves No More (which embraces the former position) and Allen Guelzo’s award-winning book, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (which takes the latter position).
Professor Elizabeth Varon, author of several books on southern slavery, politics and the Civil War era, will lead discussions on emancipation debates during Lincoln’s presidency. In addition to Lincoln's writings on slavery, emancipation and the broader meaning of the Civil War, she will examine black abolitionists’ views of the Civil War. Professor Varon will focus on African-American reformer William Still’s attempt to turn the Union war into an antislavery struggle; she will also highlight Still’s effort to desegregate the northern transportation system during and after the war. In this way, she will illuminate the broader meaning of abolitionism in the 1860s. With nearly 200,000 black troops fighting for the Union in the Civil War -- the majority of whom were ex-slaves – slavery would finally be defeated. But would America embrace black equality? That question remained paramount for many black and white abolitionists during the 1860s and 1870s. Professor Stewart will also examine debates between Garrison and Phillips over whether or not to end the American Anti-Slavery Society following the Civil War and the achievement of full freedom.
To enliven our consideration of abolitionism in the Civil War era, we will take a final field trip to Gettysburg, site not only of an epic battle but Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and a little-known cemetery dedicated to African-American soldiers. We will prepare for the final field trip by examining the Civil War writings of George Stephens, a black Civil War correspondent from Philadelphia who followed the Massachusetts 54th Regiment in the South. Combined with the movie “Glory,” Stephens’ writings will allow us to debate the subject of how Americans remember the war. While tens of thousands of people visit Gettysburg, there is no major memorial to black troops on the battlefield. And Lincoln Cemetery, located outside of the Park proper, is not highlighted in many battlefield guides. Why?
This field trip will allow us to segue into a final topic: the precedents set by the abolitionist movement, particularly its influence on Civil Rights struggles during the twentieth century. Here we will read two documents with a broader view on the importance of the abolition movement, Frederick Douglass’ famous Fifth of July speech (wondering if America can be an African-American homeland) and Philadelphia reformer Sarah Forten Grimke’s meditations on the meaning of freedom to black as well as white Americans. A scholarly selection from Stephen Hahn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Nation Under Our Feet, will provide the intellectual parameters for our final discussion on the broader relevance of the abolition movement in American history. Were abolitionists the true precursors to the NAACP and Martin Luther King? Is the story of racial reform still relevant today? How best to teach abolitionism to today’s students?
Seminar discussions will be held Monday through Thursday at the Library Company’s Cassatt House between 9 am and12 pm. Document discussions will be held between 1:30 and 2:30 pm. Fridays will be reserved for field trips, with the exception of Gettysburg (which will tentatively be held on the weekend between weeks three and four). To facilitate seminar discussions and make sure that everyone is prepared, all participants will be given reading packets that include excerpts from scholarly readings as well as primary source documents.
Seminar Location… Projects… Housing and Summer in Philadelphia
Our seminar will be held in a city that served as one of the abolition movement’s main theaters of operation between the Revolutionary era and Civil War. This should make our studies really come alive! Moreover, seminar meetings will take place at the nation’s oldest lending library and a leading repository of abolitionist documents, the Library Company of Philadelphia. Formal seminar meetings will be held at The Library Company’s Cassatt House, a beautifully renovated townhouse in the heart of Center City Philadelphia. We will meet Monday through Thursday, 9-12 and 1:30-2:30 pm. Fridays (with the exception of week four) will be reserved for field trips and participants’ research and reading. Our daily morning sessions will be dedicated to debate and discussion of scholarly readings. Afternoons will be dedicated to preparation in the Library Company’s archives and the discussion of primary source documents relating to abolitionism. You should have plenty of time for reading, reflection, and research (not to mention tours around Philadelphia!).
Indeed, you will have ample opportunities each week to research abolitionism in the Library Company’s unsurpassed archives, particularly the “Afro-Americana Collection” of materials on black freedom struggles during the 18th and 19th centuries, and to work on your seminar project, which will consist of a document discussion on a selected afternoon (in which you will lead a 30-minute discussion of a document you have found and researched in the archives) and preparation of a sample unit you plan to create during the school year (which you can present in written form, no longer than five pages). I will be available for office hours during weekday afternoons to discuss everything from daily readings to your projects.
As for daily readings, you will be asked to read between roughly 200-300 pages of material per week, in addition to your own document research in the archives. To facilitate discussion and community building, you will also have access to a list-serve designed only for those taking the seminar. This listserv will continue to be available after the seminar ends. (You will therefore be able to tell each other what worked.) Computers will be available daily at the Library Company (which has wireless access, for those who bring laptops); you will also have access to computing facilities at Drexel’s library.
This year, you will be housed in Drexel University’s undergraduate dormitories, located in vibrant University City (in West Philadelphia), roughly two miles from the Library Company. With the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel nearby, University City offers easy access to restaurants, bookstores, movie theatres, markets and more. And it is about a mile away from the world famous Philadelphia Museum of Art (and the Rocky Steps). The Drexel dorms include basic kitchen facilities, a lounge with cable tv, and laundry facilities. Housing units are located conveniently near subway and bus-lines to the Library Company. For those who do not mind walking, the Library Company is about a 40-minute walk from Drexel dorms. Drexel housing is quite affordable: between $40.00 and $50.00 per day for a single room (optional parking, linen, and gym charges will be extra). You will also have access to the Drexel Library (though this will not include borrowing privileges) and computer system. While we encourage you to stay at Drexel to promote collegiality and intellectual exchange, we will also provide information on other housing opportunities in the Philadelphia area.
You will be awarded a stipend of $3,300.00 to attend the four-week seminar, which will be distributed on the following schedule: When you first arrive, you will be given a check for half of the stipend amount; at the beginning of the third week, you will be provided with the remainder of the stipend. For those who choose to stay on the Drexel campus, the Library Company will deduct (with participants’ permission) housing costs from stipend amounts. Previous experience has taught us that this solves many concerns in advance.
Philadelphia is an international city, with many cultural and educational resources. In your spare time, particularly on weekends, you can visit the city’s world famous art museum (located roughly a mile from Drexel housing), take in a show at the new symphony hall, sample food at some great restaurants and famous local places (including “Philly cheese steaks”), use the great recreational trails for biking, running and walking, see a Phillies baseball game, or go to movies at one of the many theatres in town. There are also many historical societies and historic sites not technically associated with our seminar – from the Brandywine and Valley Forge battlefields (roughly an hour from Philadelphia by car) to the National Constitution Center in Old City Philadelphia. In short, there will be plenty to do during your stay in Philadelphia.
Thinking of Applying? We hope so…
We welcome applications from K-12 school teachers interested in learning more about American abolitionism.We are also happy to have applications from current full-time graduate students who intend to pursue careers in K-12 teaching. If you are interested in applying, please follow the steps in the section below, entitled, “2013 Application Instructions.” You can also contact me directly at rsngsm@rit.edu with any questions.
For full instructions, please read below. But note well that you should:
- Fill out an online cover sheet , which you must submit online and then print for inclusion in your completed application. You can find the online cover sheet at:
https://securegrants.neh.gov/education/participants/
- Prepare a completed application. The completed application must be submitted online by March 4, 2013 to rsngsm@rit.edu (in MS word format, please). If you decide to send an application via regular mail, it must be postmarked no later than March 4, 2013, and should be addressed as follows: Richard Newman, NEH Summer Seminar Director, c/o the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust St, Philadelphia, PA 19107. All the steps in the completed application are explained fully below.
Once again, I hope that you will seriously consider applying for our seminar. I look forward to a great summer of reading, discussion and intellectual camaraderie.
With Best Wishes,
Richard Newman
Seminar Director and Professor of History,
Rochester Institute of Technology
2013 APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS
NEH SUMMER SEMINARS AND 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 an NEH Summer Seminar or Institute, participants will receive a certificate indicating their participation. Prior to completing an application to a specific seminar or institute, please review the letter/prospectus from the project director (available on the project’s website, or as an e-mail attachment) 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 school teachers enables 16 NEH Summer Scholars 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 school teachers, 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 NEH Summer Scholars 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, charter, independent, and religiously affiliated schools receive equal consideration.
Please note: Up to two seminar spaces and three institute spaces are available for current full-time graduate students who intend to pursue careers in K-12 teaching.
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 an NEH Summer 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.
Please note: An individual may apply to up to two projects in any one year (NEH Summer Seminars, Institutes or Landmarks Workshops), but may participate in only one. Also please note that eligibility criteria differ between the Seminars and Institutes and the Landmarks Workshops programs.
SELECTION CRITERIA
A selection committee reads and evaluates all properly completed applications in order to select the most promising applicants and to identify a number of alternates. Seminar selection committees typically consist of the seminar director, a school teacher who is usually a participant in a previous NEH seminar, and a colleague of the director. Institute selection committees typically consist of three to five members, usually all drawn from the institute faculty and staff members. Recent participants are eligible to apply, but project selection committees are directed to give first consideration to applicants who have not participated in an NEH-supported Seminar, Institute or Landmarks Workshop in the last three years (2010, 2011, 2012).
The most important consideration in the selection of participants is the likelihood that an applicant will benefit professionally and personally. Committee members consider 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, in general 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; and
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 Summer Seminar, Institute, or Landmarks Workshop, or who significantly contribute to the diversity of the seminar or institute.
STIPEND, TENURE, AND CONDITIONS OF AWARD
Teachers selected to participate in five-week projects will receive stipend of $3,900; those in four-week projects will receive $3,300; those in three-week projects will receive $2,700; and those in two-week projects will receive $2,100. 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 as professionals 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
Before you attempt to complete an application, please obtain and read the “Dear Colleague Letter” from the director(s) of the project(s) to which you intend to apply: the letter 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 and subsistence. In most cases, the “Dear Colleague Letter” can be found on the project’s website. All application materials must be sent to the project director at the address listed in the “Dear Colleague Letter.” Application materials sent to the Endowment will not be reviewed.
APPLICATION CHECKLIST
A complete application consists of three copies of the following collated items:
- the completed application cover sheet,
- a résumé or brief biography, and
- 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:
https://securegrants.neh.gov/education/participants/
Please fill it out online as directed by the prompts. When you are finished, be sure to click the “submit” button. Print out the cover sheet and add it to your application package. At this point you will be asked if you want to fill out a cover sheet for another project. If you do, follow the prompts and select another project and then print out the cover sheet for that project as well. 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 several projects. A full application consists of the items listed above, as sent to the project director.
Résumé
Please include a résumé or brief biography 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 may be from inside or outside the applicant’s home institution. They should be familiar with the applicant's professional accomplishments or promise, teaching and/or research interests, and ability to contribute to and benefit from participation in the seminar or institute. Referees should be provided with the director's description of the seminar or institute and the applicant's essay. Applicants who are current graduate students should secure a letter from a professor or advisor. Please ask your referees to sign across the seal on the back of the envelope containing the letter. Enclose the letters with your application.
SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS AND NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE
Completed applications should be submitted to Richard Newman at the email or regular addresses below and should be postmarked no later than March 4, 2013.
Successful applicants will be notified of their selection on Monday, April 1, 2013, and they will have until Friday, April 5 to accept or decline the offer.
EMAIL APPLICATIONS: Once again, completed applications should be submitted online by March 4, 2013 to rsngsm@rit.edu (in MS word format, please).
REGULAR MAIL: If you decide to send an application via regular mail, it must be postmarked no later than March 4, 2013, and should be addressed as follows: Richard Newman, NEH Summer Seminar Director, c/o the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust St, Philadelphia, PA 19107.
Once you have accepted an offer to attend any NEH Summer Program (NEH Summer Seminar, Institute or Landmarks Workshop), you may not accept an additional offer or withdraw in order to accept a different offer.
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).