The Center has received a $50,000 planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to prepare a proposal for designation as the regional studies center of the Deep South. This grant is part of NEH’s major initiative to designate 10 regional studies centers across the nation. The planning grant is the first stage in a process that could lead to a $5 million endowment for our Center, from NEH, to be matched by $15 million.

Founded in 1977 and distinguished as the first regional studies center to offer bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in Southern Studies, the Center was one of two institutions in the Deep South region and one of only 16 in the nation recently awarded a $50,000 planning grant by NEH to take part in its new Initiative for Regional Humanities Centers program.

In the initial stage of the NEH-sponsored enterprise, the Center and other grantees--including the University of Virginia, Brown University, San Francisco State University, and the University of Pennsylvania--receive one year of funding to develop a plan for establishing a regional center within their geographic locales. The Center then will be eligible to apply for one of 10 full-scale, implementation grants of $5 million, which must be matched 3 to 1, resulting in attracting an additional $15 million over a seven-year period.

The ultimate objective of the initiative is to foster development of regional study centers in the Pacific, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, Plains, Upper Mississippi Valley, Central, Deep South, South Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, and New England regions, each with a $20 million endowment to support regional humanities research, education, preservation, and public programs.

The Center was selected to receive the funding based on its ability to “collaborate with other cultural institutions (in the South), support research on regional topics, document regional history, preserve cultural resources, develop K-12 learning opportunities, build college-level degree programs in regional studies, and foster cultural tourism,” according to NEH officials. Tulane University also received a planning grant in the Deep South region.

In the case of the Center, which has been studying the South for two decades, “this new planning grant is recognition of the work already achieved, based in our academic program, the research of Southern Studies faculty, and outreach activities represented by conferences and publications,” said Charles Reagan Wilson, director of the Center and professor of history and Southern Studies. “For an existing regional center, such as ours, to receive this planning grant meant that we had to be quite specific and show new ways we can contribute to the study of the South,” Wilson said.

Beyond an impressive list of achievements--including publication of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, establishment of the Blues Archive and Southern Media Archive, the restoration of Barnard Observatory as a permanent headquarters, and innumerable multidisciplinary teaching, research, and outreach programs--the Center’s NEH grant proposal outlines an ambitious plan to extend its reach even further in the region.

In addition to assessing the region’s resources with an inventory of cultural institutions, collections, programs, and services, the Center will use the grant to develop plans and attract funds for a postdoctoral fellowship program for young scholars and a sabbatical program for teachers at traditionally black institutions of higher learning in the South.

“The end result of the NEH initiative could be a program similar to the WPA-sponsored (Work Projects Administration) cultural programs of the 1930s that are still paying dividends in deepening Americans’ understanding of their culture,” Wilson said. “This planning grant will enable the Center to work closely with cultural authorities to chart a new plan for studying, preserving, and teaching about the South. It promises to be a truly collective effort.”

Congress created NEH in 1965 as an independent federal agency to support learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the classroom. NEH grants enrich classroom learning, create and preserve knowledge, and bring ideas to life through public television, radio, new technologies, museum exhibitions, and programs in libraries and other community places.

Michael Harrelson