UTAH HUMANITIES NEWSLETTER






"The priceless lesson in the New Year is that endings birth beginnings and beginnings birth endings. And in this elegantly choreographed dance of life, neither ever find an end in the other."

 Craig D. Lounsbrough

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Utah Humanities empowers Utahns to improve their communities
 through active engagement in the humanities.


A Vision for the New Year

    
Dear friends,

This time of year is always filled with reflection on the past and renewed hope for the future. As Utah Humanities looks ahead to 2017, we do it with a vision not only for what is possible, but also for the real influence we know the humanities have every single day.

Now, perhaps more than ever, the humanities provide helpful context for engaging in important discussions and a reminder to listen to each other with truly open ears, hearts, and minds. They help us take stock of our history and values as communities and nations. We learn to empathize with other perspectives through literature and storytelling, and we can engage in respectful civic dialogue that seeks understanding and solutions.

In short, we can become better, wiser, deeper human beings.

We thank you for your friendship and support, and we hope that 2017 is a year filled with the humanities for the benefit of all of us!


NEH Grants Awarded to Utah Projects

    
Congratulations to the Entrada Instituterecipient of a $50,000 Humanities Access grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to "spark humanities conversations through context and connections in rural Utah." This grant expands opportunities for families to connect with cultural and traditional resources.

According to Entrada Board President and project director Annette Lamb, the Entrada Institute will work with area partners including Wayne County School District, Wayne County USU Extension and 4-H, Capitol Reef National Park, local humanities individuals and groups, and public officials  to bring the community together in celebration of the human experience in rural America.

"NEH provides support for projects across America that preserve our heritage, promote scholarly discoveries, and make the best of America's humanities ideas available to all Americans," said NEH Chairman William D. Adams. "We are proud to announce this latest group of grantees who, through their projects and research, will bring valuable lessons of history and culture to Americans." 

The Humanities Access Grants are specifically focused on projects that support outstanding cultural programs for young people, communities of color, and economically disadvantaged populations. This term endowment grant requires the nonprofit to raise $50,000 in non-federal, third party donations for a total of $100,000 in project funds. To learn more or to help us address this matching requirement, go to  http://entradainstitute.org/sparking .

Congratulations also to Danielle Olden of the University of Utah on her fellowship for "Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post-Civil Rights America," the City of Provo for "NEH on the Road: House and Home," and the Park City Historical Society and Museum for "NEH on the Road: Spirited: Prohibition in America."


Utah Citizen Summit: The 2016 Elections, The Village Square and Community Conversations



As part of our Community Conversations program, and in partnership with Utah Village Square, Utah Humanities helped to fund dialogues and panel discussions during the recent Utah Citizen Summit.
 
After two months of "seeding dialogues" throughout Utah organized primarily by Utah Village Square, on November 12, 2016, day long dialogues began in the morning with small group work to build on the pre-Summit dialogues and to express emotions and thoughts about coming together with greater civility compassion inclusiveness and effectiveness. Elected officials, college students, parents and grandparents, activists and first-time voters, private citizens, and community leaders participated in these opening dialogue sessions. Perspectives were diverse and wide, creative and hopeful, weary and concerned, and all seeking a direction to become involved in a positive way to impact our Utah communities, the Nation and the World.
 
In the afternoon, two panel discussions were held to feature Utah and national perspectives on next steps to more fully engage our citizenship for the common good and in the spirit of coming together.  Panelists discussed, with the help of facilitators, their experience and expertise in employing civility, negotiating solutions, finding bipartisan support for policy, and bringing about creative solutions to issues facing our families, neighborhoods, and State. Further, panelists shared their feelings and insights about the 2016 elections, their own calling to public service in a multitude of forms, and to fully exercise their own citizenship. Candid and heartfelt discussion, as well as informative and rigorous conversation, occurred about some hard issues we face and how we might come together as Utahns and Americans.


Save the Date for 
The Way We Worked Grand Opening!

The Way We Worked is a traveling exhibition created by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives. Utah Humanities will tour the exhibition to six communities around Utah from January 2017 to January 2018.
 
Explore how work became such a central element in American culture by tracing the many changes that affected the workforce and work environments over the past 150 years!

Visit The Way We Worked, enjoy related community exhibitions, and participate in great local programming in Ogden, Hyrum, Castle Dale, Fillmore, Leeds, and Park City, and remember to use #UtahWorks on social media to be a part of the conversation and experience.

The entire Utah tour kicks off in Ogden with a public grand opening. Plan to join us for fun family activities, live work demonstrations from local industries, a local Ogden exhibit in addition to the Smithsonian exhibit, and more.

Ogden Grand Opening of  The Way We Worked

Saturday, January 28, 2017
12:00 pm

Ogden Union Station Museums
2501 Wall Avenue, Ogden, Utah 84401

Visit The Way We Worked exhibition page on our website for details on the entire tour.


Venture's Winter Celebration Highlights Bright Futures



Seven years ago, Terri Atkinson in Cedar City thought "my life is over." Her 30-year marriage had ended and her dream of going to college seemed out of reach. Then, she enrolled in the Venture Course in the Humanities, a partnership between Utah Humanities and Southern Utah University, and through her hard work in this free, year-long college course was able to imagine a much brighter future. Now a senior at SUU, she will graduate in the spring with a bachelor's degree. 


Photo 1: Terri Atkinson and daughters Paige and Makensie Mather.
Photo 2: Venture alumni, current students, and SUU faculty and staff gathered on December 6th in SUU's Grand Hall for a holiday feast.
Photo 3: Terri and fellow Venture alumni and SUU graduate Linda Hudson.
 
Photos courtesy of Jean Cheney.
 

Application Deadlines Approaching
 

GRANT APPLICATIONS
 
FEBRUARY 1, 2017:  COMPETITIVE GRANTS AND RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS
ONGOING:  QUICK GRANTS

Deadlines for our grants and fellowships are coming up in early 2017. If you are interested in applying, we want to you be ahead of the curve by getting started on your applications now. 
We just launched a new online application form that allows you to start creating a draft of your application and continue to refine it until the deadline. If you are interested in applying, feel free to get acquainted with the new process.  Visit our Grants page to get started!
 
MUSEUM INTERPRETATION WORKSHOPS
 
JANUARY 6, 2017: APPLICATION DEADLINE
 
Training and materials are free, but workshop space is limited and by competitive application.  For details or questions, visit our Museum Interpretation page , or contact Megan van Frank  at vanfrank@utahhumanities.org  or 801.359.9670 x110.
 

NEH Invites Applications from Utah

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announces " Creating Humanities Communities."  This new grant opportunity is an effort to provide a more accessible entry point for grassroots organizations and smaller institutions and to encourage applications from organizations new to NEH.
 
Utah is one of just 20 states eligible to participate in this initiative in 2017. Partnerships of two to five organizations may apply for grants of $30,000, $60,000, $90,000, or $150,000 and must match NEH funds at least 1:1. Check out their guidelines and application materials.
 
The goal of these matching grants is to make connections between organizations that will foster community cohesion on a local or regional level. Applicants may define community in a variety of ways (by focusing, for example, on a place such as a village or town, or on a common interest or a common theme), and the programs that the cooperating institutions carry out together must aim to enhance the importance of the humanities in people's lives.
 
To help make the process less intimidating, Utah Humanities offers to provide initial feedback on your ideas and NEH program staff offer to read a draft of your application.
 
To help make the process less intimidating, Utah Humanities offers to provide initial feedback on your ideas (contact Jodi Graham at 801.359.9670 or graham@utahhumanities.org) and NEH program staff offer to read a draft of your application (202-606-8309 or challenge@neh.gov).
 

Click the State Icon to See Our Humanities Events Near You
 


Our events calendar is organized by month, date, and region of the state.

Click the icon to visit our calendar, and remember  to check back often.

There are always new humanities events to attend!


Many Thanks


As we come to the end of the year, all of us at Utah Humanities would like to thank all of you for a wonderful year!  We are grateful to everyone who takes the time to give, partner, or collaborate with humanities programs that make an impact in Utah. We are very fortunate to have so many friends, partners, foundations, corporations, and government agencies who believe in our work and are instrumentally important to our success. We look forward to working with you to create more engaging experiences that make a difference in so many lives in 2017!



Utah Humanities is grateful for the generous support of many individuals, foundations, and corporations, and for public funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State of Utah, and the Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts, and Parks Fund.