Harford Community College Awarded NEH Grant

Press Release – Harford Community College

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced an award of $97,118 to Harford Community College (HCC) for “Active Learning and Student Engagement in the Humanities: Understanding the Civil Rights Movement in Harford County, Maryland.” The grant is for a three-year project involving student research and oral history, curriculum development, community partnerships, and the development of digital material on Harford County’s 20th century civil rights history. The project will deepen students’ understanding of literary works and local and national history and will broaden community awareness of the role that Harford County played in the Civil Rights Movement.

“This project will provide HCC Humanities students with an immersion experience in active learning that will also benefit the community by producing a digital record of the Civil Rights movement in greater Harford County, MD,” said Dr. James Karmel, Project Director and Professor. Jennie Towner, Associate Vice President for Student Development and Student Support Leader for the project, stated, “As a non-native resident, I am very excited to learn alongside our students about Harford County during the civil rights era by being part of this important grant opportunity.”

Along with Dr. James Karmel and Jennie Towner, the following HCC employees will serve on the project team:  Colleen Webster (Faculty Scholar), Susan Muaddi Durraj (Faculty Scholar), Sharoll Williams-Love (Student Support Specialist), Mark Dencler (Faculty Scholar), Mark Brock-Cancellieri (Faculty Scholar), Jennifer MyersSmith, (Student Support Specialist), Jenny Jakulin (Student Support Specialist), and Michael Dixon (Faculty Scholar). Dr. Elizabeth Nix, Associate Professor at the University of Baltimore, and Dr. Jennifer Erdman, Assistant Professor at Notre Dame of Maryland University will serve as project consultants. Community partners engaged with the College in the project include the Harford County Public Library, Havre de Grace Colored School Foundation, Historical Society of Harford County, Hosanna School Museum, Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights Museum at Morgan State University, and Visit Harford.

NEH awarded $14.8 million in grants to support 253 humanities projects in 44 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. An additional $47.5 million was awarded to fund 55 state humanities council partners.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at: http://www.neh.gov/ .