Penn State's Civil War Era Center Receives $1 Million NEH Challenge Grant

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) named Penn State’s George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center as one of the recipients of its We the People Challenge Grants for 2005. The award provides a grant of $1 million to the center to help build its endowment for programming in the humanities and must be matched by another $3 million raised by the University within a 56-month period.

The initiative supports targeted institutions that can help fulfill the goal of the We the People Initiative to further the study, teaching, and understanding of American history. The NEH challenge grant helps build resources for those projects that explore significant events and themes in our nation's history, and shares these lessons with all Americans.

“The war represents both the culmination of debates left unresolved by the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention and the beginning of new struggles for freedom that emerged in the battles over Civil Rights in our more recent past," said Richards Center Director William Blair, associate professor of history. "The grant is an exceptional honor that marks the formal acknowledgement by the federal government of the outstanding work of the Richards Center in advancing the study of the Civil War Era and related issues of slavery, freedom, and equality up to the present day.”

The fund will support programs that have been part of its strategic plan. Monies generated from the endowment will provide an undergraduate education fund, lecture programs, summer institutes geared both toward emerging scholars in higher education and teachers in secondary education, resources for conferences and public symposia, and various fellowships to encourage research from faculty both within Penn State and from other institutions. All of this adds to an already strong programming base that has now achieved national recognition.

“This new support allows us to expand our unique mission to serve a multitude of publics both inside and outside of the academy, and find productive ways of connecting scholars and the public over this most fundamental issue in American lives,” the Penn State historian says.