Dear Colleague

Dear Colleague,

We are delighted with your interest in our NEH 2011 Summer Institute, The Power of Place: Land and Peoples in Appalachia, and invite you to consider joining the three-week gathering of writers and scholars in Asheville, North Carolina, from July 10 to July 29, at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

Our NEH Institute’s Content and Goals

Our NEH Summer Institute will use insights from the study of environmental history to examine the role of landscape in the shaping of culture and history, with the Southern Appalachians as a powerful case study. Using the experience of Appalachia, we will see how environmental history presents new questions to interrogate past events, encourages an interdisciplinary approach to history, and presents an excellent opportunity for team teaching in the classroom.

                                   
“More is known about Appalachia that is untrue than about any other region of the country.”     
                                  Sissy Spacek in APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People

The Appalachian Mountains are some of the oldest and most complicated geologic forms on the planet. As a scientist once noted, wherever you find a geologically complex landscape, you are apt to find an equally complicated people. The history of Appalachia bears that out.  The complexity of the landscape is reflected in the complexity of its inhabitants. The biological diversity and mosaic of habitats of the mountains are mirrored in the diversity and variety of cultures found there. These cultures include one of the largest tribes of Native Americans east of the Mississippi, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee as well as long-standing communities of African Americans, represented by great American intellectuals as Booker T. Washington and Henry Louis Gates. In Appalachia’s coalfields, Ukrainians and Hungarians have worked alongside Italians and Irish. It is indeed a complicated place with a rich history.

From the beginning the vast natural resources of the mountains have played a crucial role in its story. Mountain forests full of wildlife provided a valuable hunting ground for the earliest humans. Much later British colonists came to the same forests seeking masts for the ships of the British Navy. Commercial profits derived from its furs led to major political upheavals in Europe, triggering the Seven Years War there and the French and Indian War in America. Repeatedly in Appalachia, we see this story played out as new ways of looking at nature, along with new tools, lead to radical alterations in the landscape and the lives of its peoples.

Our NEH Institute’s Format

If you are recruited as an NEH scholar for this institute, you will attend lectures, participate in classroom discussions, analyze primary sources, complete reading assignments, watch documentary films, visit historic sites, and develop curricular materials using the materials, ideas and approaches explored in the institute.

The acclaimed PBS Series APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People will introduce topics and give a framework for the activities. The film series gives an incisive overview to key issues of Appalachian history as well as a model for pulling together primary materials and scholarship from a variety of disciplines.  In recent years, many outstanding studies have appeared in the field of Appalachian history that challenge the traditional notion of an isolated homogeneous Appalachian culture, and we will delve into many of these. Each week we will have several distinguished scholars lead sessions. Classroom seminars will explore topics using a variety of media and materials, including much original source material—from sixteenth century maps to farm ledgers to twentieth century films. In addition, field trips and cultural offerings will provide you with a firsthand knowledge of mountain people, landscape and culture.

The institute will be organized chronologically into three one-week sessions exploring different human societies in the Appalachians and their relationships to the mountains. We will look at how each of the peoples who came to the region were shaped by the land they encountered and, in turn, how their cultural assumptions and their technological tools influenced the life they made for themselves. We will consider the Appalachian Mountains as they come under successive groups of human societies—each with different ideas about the relationship of humans to nature and what constitutes the best use of the land.

The weekdays will be structured so that mornings are devoted to presentations by core and visiting faculty along with discussions of reading and source materials. Two afternoons a week will be devoted to field trips, and two to curriculum projects and lesson plans. Field trips to historic sites will elucidate the themes of the institute and will often be lead by park or site historians.

The schedule will also include small group seminars where master teachers and content scholars will work with you to produce lesson plans that take an approach from environmental history and apply it to the classroom. These will be shared with the group and then posted as a resource on the Internet.

NEH Summer Scholars will schedule at least one individual meeting each week with curriculum consultants, Dr. Byrd and Dr. Banker and/or core faculty Dr. Pierce, Dr. Abrams Locklear, and Ms. Ross. During the day, the core faculty will be available for additional consultation to help you any way we can.
 
On Friday afternoon of each week, we will have a noted Appalachian writer discuss their work and how it relates to the themes of the institute. On Wednesday evenings, we will offer an optional Appalachian feature film. In addition, we will have opportunities each weekend to explore the rich musical heritage of the mountains. Thus you will not only be studying the scholarship written about the Appalachians, but you will also be immersed in the subject itself—a unique and rich learning experience.

Week One: July 11 to July 17 The Land and Early Peoples

The first week will introduce the rich natural history of the Appalachian Mountains, their wealth of biological treasures, and the first humans to encounter those treasures. We will begin by learning about the early humans who made the mountains their home and the tribal cultures they developed in response to the land they inhabited. These tribes came under duress with the arrival of DeSoto and the deadly microbes he carried. This duress increased with the influx of land-hungry colonists and their domestic animals. Using primary sources we will examine the earliest European maps of the region for what these tell us about the early Europeans as well as the land itself.

We will examine the role of the forest in the lives of the first peoples and with the colonists who came later, exploring assumptions and attitudes about Appalachia’s first inhabitants. Native American knowledge of the forests and fields , for example, saved many colonists from starvation. In turn, the Europeans introduce manufactured goods to the Indians. The fur trade that developed from these early exchanges radically transformed Indian society, while surveyors measured and divided the land for a system of private ownership. Enmity grew as settlers press further into the interior.

We will use a variety of materials, including maps, early eyewitness accounts, historical writings and Cherokee legends, to create a picture of the early encounters between colonists and native peoples. Whenever possible we will make use of digital maps and documents online, resources that are available to teachers anywhere. (See the Appendix)

Field Trips: The first week our guest lecturer will be combined with a field trip to Mount Mitchell, Professor Timothy Silver will give us a lesson on reading the landscape, and on early uses of the Appalachian forest.  We will also take a day to visit The Qualla Boundary, home of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. We will trace the rich past of the Cherokee along with their story today. 

Author Visit: Affrilachian poet, Crystal Wilkinson will join us for our first “Author Friday.” As one of the core members of the Affrilachian Poets group, Crystal Wilkinson helps revise misguided notions of an homogeneously white Appalachia.

Week Two: July 18 to July 24 Mountain Revolutions

A fluke of geology—gold discovered on tribal land in Georgia,—resulted in the forcible removal of the Cherokee by order of President Andrew Jackson. We will learn about William Holland Thomas, the white adopted son of a Cherokee chief. Thomas became one of the richest and most successful men in North Carolina, and we will examine his ledgers for what they reveal about the man and his times. Through Thomas’s shrewd dealings, a small remnant of the Cherokee homeland was preserved for future generations.

This week’s sessions will examine the mountain farm homestead along with the political and cultural makeup of the Mountain South before the Civil War. We will first study a way of life shaped by the mountains and the forests , and then we will visit a local historic homestead to get a firsthand look at how these farms adapted to the landscape..

The topography of the mountains did not lend itself to large-scale plantations, and in the Mountain South homesteads developed a form of woodlands agriculture uniquely suited to their surroundings.  As a result, slavery in the mountains was a markedly different practice from that of the lowland South. We will explore how mountain life was deeply disrupted by a Civil War that completely decimated the land. The war also introduced soldiers to the region who later returned to seek its virgin forest and rich coal seams to fuel the new industrial age.  Guest lecturer John Inscoe will lead a discussion about the Civil War in the mountains, and of the Shelton Laurel Massacre, which occurred just forty miles from Asheville. One of core texts for this week will be Phillip Shaw Paludan’s Victims: A True Story of the Civil War,  which focuses on the Shelton Laurel story.

While the Civil War in the mountains was a watershed event, if we consider the land as a major character in the historical narrative, the coming of the railroads was equally cataclysmic. The railroads transformed life irrevocably as outside investors swarmed the countryside seeking timber and coal for the new industrial age. Aided by ambitious locals, they bought up property deeds, mineral rights and timber.

Just a decade after the Civil War, virgin forests still blanketed over eighty percent of the Southern Appalachians. In thirty short years, new technologies coupled with the national hunger for resources left behind less than ten per cent of the original stands.
Railroads also opened the Appalachians up for tourists and journalists. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, local colorists featured the region in popular stories and sketches. By reading early accounts from these, we see how the hillbilly stereotype soon became the lens through which the rest of the country viewed the region.

Field Trips: Vance Birthplace A pioneer farmstead, the birthplace of Zebulon Vance, a former Senator and Governor of North Carolina, is tucked away on Reems Creek just outside of Asheville. The site features a farm and a five-room log house typical of mountain homesteads during the early 19th century. We will also visit Biltmore House, the largest privately owned home in America. Biltmore House was built by George Vanderbilt who was also responsible for the first school of forestry in the United States.

Author Visit: We will be able to contrast our experience of the Biltmore Estate with the timber baroness in Ron Rash’s best-selling novel, Serena. Ron Rash is a two time O. Henry Prize winner as well as the 2010 winner of the Frank O’Connor Award, “the world’s richest prize for the short story form.”

Week Three:  July 25 to July 29   Appalachia Comes of Age

In the final week we see many Appalachians come into a new sense of themselves, standing up for their mountains and their way of life. First, we will examine the toll resource extraction takes on the mountains and their peoples. We examine how the vast denuding of the land , can, did and still does result in devastating floods. We will discuss the new spirit of conservation embodied by the President Theodore Roosevelt that began to take hold. The passage of the Weeks Act of 1910 created the first national forests and at Biltmore House in Asheville, Gifford Pinchot and Carl Schenk established a new approach to timber management. The National Forest Service was born.

Our guest lecturer, eminent historian, Dr. Ronald Eller will discuss the industrialization of the mountains and the role of the federal government in the region in the 20th century. Dr. Eller is the author of two seminal works on modern Appalachia: Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930 and Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945.  Dr. Eller is a seventh generation Appalachian himself whose family has farmed, cut timber, dug coal and migrated to Ohio as part of the great Appalachian Diaspora of the mid-twentieth century.

We see that the coal rich areas of the mountains soon became the most impoverished. Appalachians by the tens of thousands left home to seek work in factories up North. Appalachian poverty takes center stage in the national news and some in the region begin to connect the region’s economic devastation to the exploitation of the land. Grassroots organizations sprang up as a new technology threatened the mountains themselves—mountaintop removal mining. We see the persistence of the hillbilly stereotype and its connection to “internal colonialism” when we examine a span of thirty years of programs “reporting” on Appalachia. 

In many ways, this new environmental consciousness went hand in hand with a new cultural awareness. Bluegrass Music became a national treasure and old time music continues to find new followings among young people. Modern Appalachia has produced a bevy of poets and fiction writers as well: Thomas Wolfe, James Agee, Robert Morgan, Lee Smith, Ron Rash, Denise Giardina, Sharyn McCrumb and Barbara Kingsolver. Our guest lecturer, Dr. Gwen Ashburn,  will speak to us about the flowering of literature in the region and its connection to the mountains.

Field Trips: At Asheville’s Young Men’s Institute, two native Asheville Civil Rights activists, will discuss issues of race in the region.  On our visit to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Folk Art Center, we will explore the role of the Parkway as a federal works program as well as a conservation effort, the tension between private ownership and public good it faced and faces today, and the history of local crafts and their role in the Appalachian image.

Author Visit:  Well-known Appalachian author, Denise Giardina, will be discussing two of her best know novels, Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth..

Professional Development Credit

Upon completion of the institute, Power of Place: Land and Culture in Appalachia, teachers will receive letters confirming the contact hours of the workshop and its activities. For interested participants, UNC Asheville’s office of Graduate and Continuing Education will award CEUs for a minimal fee.

Faculty

Daniel S. Pierce, Ph.D., chair of the history department at the University of North Carolina at Asheville will serve as academic co-director of the series. Dr. Pierce is author of the widely acclaimed environmental history, The Great Smokies:  From Natural Habitat to National Park. His most recent book is Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France. Jamie S. Ross, producer of the PBS series, APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People, will serve as co-director and core faculty member of the NEH Institute. Ten years in the making, the series APPALACHIA has been lauded as a landmark in historical film making. Erica Abrams Locklear, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Literature and Language department at UNC Asheville, specializes in Appalachian and Southern literature, and teaches courses in American literature, Women’s Studies, and Humanities. Her book, Negotiating a Perilous Empowerment: Appalachian Women’s Literacies, is forthcoming in Ohio University Press’ Series in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Appalachia. 

Our master teacher will assist teachers in developing materials for the classroom. Sandra Byrd, assistant provost for Graduate and Continuing Education at the University of North Carolina Asheville will work with the institute to guide and assist individual curriculum projects. Visiting Faculty will include historians Timothy Silver, Ron Eller, and John Inscoe as well as authors Ron Rash, Denise Giardina, and Affrilachian poet, Crystal Wilkinson.

Our NEH Institute’s Resources and Requirements

One of the greatest assets this NEH Summer Institute offers is its location in Asheville, North Carolina. Asheville’s open hospitality and rich cultural scene are a direct result of its Appalachian heritage.  Our host institution, the University of North Carolina Asheville, has repeatedly received national recognition for its outstanding liberal arts curriculum. Its award-winning faculty, outstanding research facilities and nationally acclaimed undergraduate research program have landed it on multiple “Best Buys in Educations” lists. NEH Summer Scholars will have access to these resources including campus computer labs, recreation facilities, libraries and extensive primary sources in the university’s special collections.

During the NEH Summer Institute, scholars will be housed on campus in a dormitory with air-conditioned, fully furnished, spartan but functional rooms with both Ethernet and wireless Internet access.  Each room has a microwave-refrigerator, and the dorm includes a community kitchen and laundry room as well.  All rooms are two-bedroom suites that share a common bathroom. The cost has not been finalized at this time, but will be approximately $39 per person per night for a single room and $29 for a double. There will be a one time charge of $15 dollars for linen if provided by the campus. Meal plans will be available for a modest cost and details will follow soon. There are several off-campus restaurants within reach on foot, and each evening a shuttle will be available to take institute members to downtown Asheville, where galleries and cafes abound.

Our three-week NEH 2011 Summer Institute will accommodate 30 NEH Summer Scholars and will provide a stipend of $2,700 to each participant to offset travel and living expenses. Three institute spaces are available for full-time graduate students who intend to pursue careers in K-12 teaching.  If qualified graduate students cannot be found, teachers selected from the applicant pool will fill those spaces.  Because the methods of environmental history can be used to enrich the curriculum at any level, this NEH Summer Institute invites applications from teachers of all grade levels. Full-time teachers in schools, whether public, private, or church-affiliated, are eligible to apply. The institute will also accept applications from school librarians, counselors, and parents who home school.

For more information on eligibility, see the application information and instructions included with this letter.

Application Procedures

Applications consist of an application cover sheet, a brief curriculum vita, essay, and two letters of recommendation (to be sent separately). Perhaps the most important part of the application is the essay. This should include relevant personal and academic information; reasons for applying; a discussion of your qualifications and interest in the topic; and, a discussion of what you hope to gain by participation, in relation both to your research and teaching. Completed application materials may be submitted to the project director electronically in e-mail attachments; if submitted in hard copy, application materials must be postmarked no later than March 1, 2011. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by April 1, 2011, and successful applicants will have until April 5 to accept or decline the offer.

Please see NEH instructions below for more details.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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 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 significantly 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 (2008, 2009, 2010). 

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 six-week long projects will receive a stipend of $4,500; those in five-week projects will receive $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 the project co-director, Dan Pierce, and should be postmarked no later than March 1, 2011.

Dr. Dan Pierce
New Hall-215 CPO # 2830
One University Heights
Asheville, NC 28804-8520

Successful applicants will be notified of their selection on Friday, April 1, 2011, and they will have until Tuesday, April 5 to accept or decline the offer. 

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).

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.