A three-year project to collect oral histories of the post-World War II generation of  Crow tribe members, to develop humanities course modules based on the interviews, and to train students in oral history methods.

Little Big Horn College (LBHC) proposes a three year Humanities Initiative to enhance the oral histories held in the LBHC Archives which will strengthen Crow perspectives in humanities courses at the college. The LBHC Archives currently holds a large number of pre and early reservation oral histories. The period after World War II lacks the same breadth. As a result, a great deal of material that could assist in a comprehensive Crow centered humanities curriculum is not readily available. Humanities faculty will conduct oral history interviews, integrate the content into the classroom via course modules, and present the oral histories to the Crow community through the Cultural Enrichment Speaker Series. The oral history audio and video files and transcripts will reside at the LBHC Library/Archives for faculty, students and community members to utilize after the completion of the Humanities Initiative as well as being available on the Internet.

To Support: A series of professional development activities for Montana school teachers on the history and culture of the Nakona and Dakota people.

This project will utilize the resources collected over the past two years in the development of an extensive bibliography, a complete writing of the history of the Nakona and Dakota people, utilizing historical documents and materials specific to these tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The history of the Nakona (Assiniboine) and Dakota (Sioux) will be presented for the first time to public school teachers, staff, parents, and community members, tribal college students and non-humanities faculty, by the humanities faculty and visiting scholars of Fort Peck Community College. This project will create opportunities for faculty members in the humanities division to study together while improving their compacity to teach the humanities, and to be able to share their knowledge with other faculty members that teach in other disciplines. It will fund visiting scholars with extensive knowledge of the Nakona and Dakota people, as guest speakers and workshop leaders.

A three-year project to create an interdisciplinary bachelor's degree program in Tribal Historic Preservation.

Salish Kootenai College proposes to expand the current humanities and liberal arts programs to create a Bachelor’s Degree program in Tribal Historic Preservation based in the Liberal Arts Department. This program would prepare students for employment in historic preservation, cultural resource management and cultural departments. An integrated, multidisciplinary course of study featuring diverse humanities content is the key component of the prospective Tribal Historic Preservation program of study and will include instruction in anthropology, English, history, Native American studies including numerous offerings in Native American arts, crafts, oral tradition, language, traditional technologies and visual arts. The planning process for THP program will provide the opportunity to improve instruction at SKC by coordinating the diverse multidisciplinary curricula across the humanities to emphasize the importance of Native American heritage, stewardship and historic preservation.

A professional and curriculum development program that would embed ethics into the college’s general education curriculum.

Montana State University Billings City College general education faculty seeks to utilize a humanities initiative to embed applied ethics across the core curriculum through four themes: environmental, intercultural, medical, and technological. This solution will grow inter-disciplinary study among faculty, generate humanities-based resources, unify the general education curriculum, and expand ethical reasoning for 77% of Associate’s seeking students. To reach an institutionalized goal, a two-and-a-half year program of activities with at least 40 faculty contact hours, for nine full-time faculty, has been created with three phases: faculty development, curriculum development, and implementation and assessment. After establishing a working knowledge of applied ethics, faculty will create and implement an embedded curriculum, and produce a sustainable process for continual improvement.

Retaining two full-time and one part-time archive staff, along with a paid intern, to place online a project integrating archival materials into the local social studies curriculum.

The Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives' mission is to work with educators to enhance the classroom experience using archival collections. In April of 2020, Butte, Montana's fifth graders were scheduled to tour the Archives and work with archival materials. Due to COVID-19, these plans were cancelled. The Archives proposes providing this curriculum online by digitizing the archival materials with hands-on projects about Butte, Montana's history. The Archives proposes placing this curriculum online in a downloadable package for students and educators. The packets were developed with the School District's Curriculum Office as well as local teachers. The package would be supplemented with a virtual tour of the facility and educational information about the care and handling of archival materials will be provided.

The development of an undergraduate seminar on the question, What form of government is best suited to human society?

Assistant Professor Robert Saldin develops a first- and second- year seminar that is sponsored by the university's political science department and honors college. The seminar addresses how governmental structures are attuned to social arrangements and how these structures influence "a society's way of life." The first part of the course considers theories about governmental forms, with examples from classical antiquity. "An essential purpose of this first portion . . . will be to encourage students to take a step back from our own familiar life within a liberal democracy" and consider other possible forms of government organization in different times and places. Tentative readings for this section include selections from Aristotle's Politics, Plato's Republic, and Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Aristophanes' The Clouds, Shakespeare's Coriolanus, and Plutarch's "Life of Lycurgus" are read in full. The second part of the course examines "three government forms-theocracy, liberal democracy, and socialism-that are contemporary, and controversial" to provide specific case studies to illuminate the central question. Readings on theocracy include John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity"; Ayatollah Khomeini, "Messages to Pilgrims"; Thomas Jefferson, "Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom"; and Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. Readings for liberal democracy encompass Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; and Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron." Socialism is studied through Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution; and Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon. The course is offered twice, in Fall 2013 and Fall 2014; each iteration includes two outside guest lectures open to the university community with live streaming video; the lecturers also meet privately with the class to discuss their presentations. Professor Saldin notes that his scholarly training focuses on "American politics and public policy." The grant allows him to expand his expertise into other periods and cultures through close study of works listed in the scholarly bibliography included in the application.

A statewide conference on Montana history and culture, and a variety of American history and culture projects through the Committee's speakers bureau, grants program, reading and discussion groups, and the annual Montana Festival of the Book.

The Montana Committee for the Humanities proposes using FY2005 We The People grant funds in 2005 and 2006 to support a major statewide conference on Montana history and culture and a variety of American history and culture projects through its on-going Speakers Bureau, regrants program, OpenBook reading and discussion program, and its annual Montana Festival of the Book.

To support regrants, speakers bureau, the OpenBook reading and discussion program, and the Montana Festival of the Book. The funded programs will employ a variety of media, lectures, conferences, reading and discussion, teacher institutes, and website and print publications.

The Montana Committee for the Humanities proposes using FY2007 We The People grant funds in 2007 and 2008 to support a variety of American history and culture projects through its on-going Speakers Bureau, general regrants program, OpenBook reading and discussion program, and its annual Montana Festival of the Book.

The development of a grant program, a Speakers' Bureau, the OpenBook reading and discussion program, the annual Montana Festival of the Book as well as humanities-based civic discourse programming.

Humanities Montana proposes using FY2009 We The People grant funds in 2009 and 2010 to support a variety of American history and culture projects through its on-going regrants program, Speakers Bureau, OpenBook reading and discussion program, its annual Montana Festival of the Book, and continued support for our civic discourse programming.

Two one-week workshops for 72 school teachers to explore the Great Sioux War and the Battle of Little Bighorn from diverse perspectives.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is a rich topic of scholarship and popular media that provides great opportunity for deep study in the humanities. A wealth of historic, cultural and primary sources, produced over time with many perspectives, provides the secondary teacher a great platform for instruction. Through a rich understanding of the battle, the teacher understands this clash of cultures and the competition for valuable resource and opportunity. Through the study of the battle, students will distinguish key concepts in literature such as the explicit and inference in text, compare and contrast between points of view, distinguish between focus and firsthand and secondhand information, and interpret information in many formats. The strength of the topic provides the teacher the perfect format to engage in the common core standards for literacy, across reading, writing, speaking and listening in an interesting and motivating topic.

Two one-week Landmarks workshops for eighty school teachers on gold, silver, and copper mining in the American West, with visits to Virginia City, Helena, and Butte, Montana.

Using Montana as a case study, the workshop, The Richest Hills: Mining in the Far West, 1865-1920, will utilize three significant landmark sites--Virginia City, Helena, and Butte, Montana--to explore placer gold mining, silver mining, and industrial copper mining, as they relate to the issues of racial and cultural diversity in the West, the built environment and its relationship to the industry of mining, the relationship between capital and labor in the mining industry, and finally the importance of mining to the industrialization of America.

Two one-week workshops for seventy-two school teachers that connect the study of mines and mining in Montana to broad patterns of U.S. history.

This workshop addresses the contributions of western mining to the social and economic history of the United States through study of the different types of mining in four Montana towns. Lectures and discussions address such topics as the technological processes of mining; capital and labor in the mining industry; the architecture and commercial life of Bannack, Virginia City, Helena, and Butte; African-American, Jewish, and Chinese communities; and relations with Native Americans in the region. Project co-directors Kirby Lambert (Montana Historical Society [MHS]) and Paula Petrik (history, George Mason University) are joined by Robert Swartout (history, Carroll College), Ken Egan (literature, Humanities Montana), Fredric Quivik (industrial heritage and archaeology, Michigan Technological University), Nicholas Vrooman (Native American history, University of Montana), Andrea Stierle (biochemistry, Montana State University [MSU]), Mary Murphy (history, MSU), educator and Crow tribe member Shayne Doyle (Native American studies, MSU), independent filmmaker Pamela Roberts, and other local experts. Readings include selections from Montana: A History of Two Centuries (Michael Malone, et al.) and Montana: Stories of the Land (Krys Holmes), as well as scholarly chapters and articles, several by workshop faculty Petrik, Murphy, and Vrooman. The participants also use primary sources from MHS, including documents, maps, and photographs, as they develop teaching units.

To support the establishment of an endowment for acquisitions and collections maintenance.

To support the endowment of two faculty chairs, one in Native American literature and the other in Western American studies, as well as library acquisitions, and research and travel for faculty in the humanities.

Installation of compact storage units, treatment of historic windows, improvements to the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system, and related fundraising costs as part of a larger renovation and expansion project for a new Montana Heritage Center.

In 2019 the Montana Legislature passed the Montana Museums Act, which provided substantial funding to construct a new Montana Heritage Center for the Montana Historical Society. With these funds in place, MHS has moved forward with plans to complete a substantial addition to and remodel of their existing building. Completing the project requires MHS to raise $10 million in private funds. To reach this goal, MHS is requesting support from the National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant program in the amount of $750,000, with MHS raising matching funds of $3 million. NEH and matching funds will be used for specific aspects of the Montana Heritage Center project, including personnel costs for fundraising staff, the permanent installation of compact shelving for collections storage, refurbishing historic windows, and HVAC system improvements.

Equipment and furnishings for the new permanent exhibit on the history of forestry and land conservation in the United States at the National Museum of Forest Service History in Missoula, Montana.

Our proposal seeks $500,000 to help support the physical pieces for our marquee exhibit titled above and discussed in our proposal, such as the benches, lighting, plinths, artifact cases, seating, video monitors and more – the hardware of the exhibits. This equipment will be an integral component of the exhibits as part of the National Conservation Legacy Center (Center), the flagship facility of the National Museum of Forest Service History. The Capital Campaign for the Center is close to completion, with construction to begin in 2023 and Grand Opening planned in 2024. The seven exhibit themes, detailed in our proposal, are full of humanities content, reflecting our country's conservation history over the past 115+ years. It is a fascinating story of how public values and science have evolved, with the Forest Service and other conservation agencies having also to evolve in kind, to create an ever-shifting landscape of public land use and conservation policy.

Planning for a regional humanities center in the Rocky Mountains region.

Consultant help is sought in developing a master's program in public history. Faculty from departments of History, Anthropology, Archaeology, Architectural History, Musicology, and Political Science may participate in the program.

To engage consultant help in evaluating a proposed schema for a humanities program at Carroll College and in recommending improvements in that program.

To support consultative assistance to the college in evaluating the humanities education now provided to occupational students, developing stronger ties between Humanities and Technical Division faculty, and strengthening overall institutional support of the humanities.

To support a faculty study project on representations of American Indians in film and literature for elementary and secondary school teachers on a BlackfeetIndian reservation in Browning, Montana.

A series of faculty seminars on Native American cultural survival in North and Latin America.

A four-quarter Salish Cultural Leadership training program to educate twelve new cultural leaders in Salish language, culture, and customs.

To support piloting of an intensive humanities course for entering students at this teachers' college, entitled: The Coming of Age of Western Man.

To support a six-week summer institute for 25 faculty members, who will study the cultural response in three Asian nations to the experience of war with the United States.