The leading national organization that provides funds to humanities projects recently announced a $577,500 grant to the University's Miller Center for Public Affairs.
The National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, will endow the funds as part of its "We the People" initiative to research important ideas and events in American history and share this information with the public, according to the NEH Web site.
The funds will be allocated to the Miller Center's AmericanPresident.org program.
"AmericanPresident.org is an outreach to teachers, students and the general public to strengthen teaching and knowledge about the American presidency," said Margaret Edwards, Miller Center director for external relations. "We are very excited because we feel this grant is a major endorsement of our aim to prepare citizens to be part of our democracy."
AmericanPresident.org provides information about the president and the executive branch, including text and media collections, according to the Miller Center Web site.
Challenge grants are offered on a competitive basis. Potential recipients' applications are reviewed by the NEH and chosen based on their "quality and significance," according to the NEH Web site.
"By providing a teacher-specific module on the current Web site as well as presenting annual 'Presidential Institutes' for teachers from around the nation, the applicant is directly addressing the challenge of preparing students to live in a democracy," according to the press release.
The Miller Center will match the grant on a 3-to-1 basis over the next four years.
In order to meet the grant, the Miller Center will "apply to charitable foundations and individuals that fund civic education," AmericanPresident.org Program Director Garth Wermter said.
A main recipient of the grant will be secondary school teachers.
"We feel that teachers lack the resources, not the will, to engage their students in civic education," Wermter said. "We want to bring teachers in and supply them with engaging resources."
The Miller Center intends to begin the summer teaching programs by 2008 when all of the funding will be available, he said.
St. Mary's College in Maryland, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia are among the other recipients.
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