NEH Funds 2022 Summer Institute

Teachers already dreaming about summer break will be happy to know that the University of South Carolina Beaufort has once again received a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund its summer institute “America’s Reconstruction: The Untold Story.” This three week program is an opportunity for professional development for K-12 educators presented by USCB’s Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era (ISRE).

This will be the fifth NEH summer institute at USCB, and puts the University over $1 million total awarded in this NEH grant program. Professor of History and ISRE Director Dr. J. Brent Morris directs the summer institute, which focuses on helping K-12 teachers learn more about the Reconstruction Era so they can better engage their students. The Reconstruction Era was literally a period of rebuilding—it entailed the reshaping of the ideologies of the defeated Old South and the physical re-construction of the region so desolated by the ravages of war, and, as a nation, developing policies that thoroughly remade and modernized America and laid the foundation for the "Second Reconstruction"—the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s and 60s. The ending of slavery not only brought freedom to African Americans but also inaugurated a complex reshaping of fundamental American institutions including the lawmaking process, family structure, church organization, and the very definition of American citizenship itself.

This summer institute for 25 educators from across the country will be held in July 2022 at the Historic Beaufort campus of the University of South Carolina Beaufort and surrounding region. In 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer institute was held in 100% online virtual format, but hopes are high that it can resume an in-person next summer. USCB and visiting faculty will provide instruction and lead visits to local historic sites throughout the three-week experience. Teachers receive a stipend to cover their travel and other expenses related to attending the institute. Applications will be available in November.

For more information and to apply to attend USCB’s NEH-sponsored Summer Institute “America’s Reconstruction: The Untold Story,” visit https://www.uscb.edu/americasreconstruction/ or contact Dr. J. Brent Morris at MORRISJ1@uscb.edu.