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A mahogany plaque now hangs in the lobby of
the LEH's new Louisiana Humanities Education
Center at Turners Hall to recognize major
donors whose generosity made the Center a
reality. "There is no way we can thank these
major donors enough for the confidence they
demonstrated in supporting this project, but
we want to recognize them in some way," said
LEH Chair Dr. Alice Pecoraro. "To the first
donors who stepped up and got things rolling,
to those who came forward immediately after
Katrina and actually accelerated the project
when the city and state needed it most, and
finally to those who helped close out the
Kresge Challenge Grant, we give them our
thanks." While the Kresge Challenge Grant has
been fulfilled and the Education Center is
now in use, important aspects of the campaign
remain. "There are still a few blank tiles on
the donor wall," said Dr. Pecoraro. "We
welcome the opportunity to talk with all who
are interested in making the Capital Campaign
a complete success."
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Noted New Orleans philanthropists and art
collectors Sydney and Walda Besthoff have
donated three bronze kinetic sculptures to
the LEH's John Scott Collection. The painted
art works were created by the late John
Scott, a renowned New Orleans artist and
recipient of the 1984-1985 MacArthur Genius
Award. "This donation adds important elements
to the collection and I cannot thank Sydney
and Walda enough," said LEH President and
Executive Director Dr. Michael Sartisky. "The
Besthoffs understand what we are trying to
accomplish through the collection and wanted
these three pieces to be viewed by the public
as part of the largest permanent collection
of Scott's work in the world."
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In conjunction with the April 14, 2008, to
Jan. 15, 2009, tour of the Smithsonian
Institution Museum on Main Street and LEH
exhibition "New Harmonies: Celebrating
American Roots Music," the following
pre-exhibition activities are planned:
"New Harmonies" tour schedule: |
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The spring 2008 edition of Louisiana Cultural
Vistas, due for circulation in mid-March,
features a cover story, "A Brush with the
Intimate," about New Orleans artist Jean
Seidenberg, "a painter of people"
says the artist in his own words.
Seidenberg's works are currently on view at
the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New
Orleans, and a book featuring his paintings
and sculptures, funded in part by the
LEH, is scheduled for release later this year.
Other content from the forthcoming magazine
will include:
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From July 7 to July 31, approximately 25 New
Orleans kindergarten through 8th grade
teachers will have the opportunity to
participate in the "Prime Time for PRIME
TIME in New Orleans Schools" Institute
for Advanced Study that will provide
instruction in the PRIME TIME FAMILY
READING TIME® methodology. A partnership
between LEH and the University of New
Orleans, the Institute will be co-directed by
Dr. Nancy Dixon, who teaches at the
University of New Orleans and has been a
PRIME TIME scholar for several years,
and Dr. Olivia Pass, the associate director
of PRIME TIME who has served as a
PRIME TIME scholar for 7 years as well
as a program coordinator for PRIME
TIME. The Institute will be held at the
Louisiana Humanities Center at Turners Hall
in New Orleans. Guest instructors include
Jack Heflin, Endowed Professor of English at
the University of Louisiana at Monroe and a
PRIME TIME scholar, and Cindy Treme, a
PRIME TIME storyteller from Lake Charles.
In this Institute, teachers will employ
PRIME TIME methodologies and books to
enhance their ability to teach reading and
critical thinking skills in grades K-8. They
will also learn techniques for character
education. "Teachers will learn to foster
discussion, focus on real-life issues, and
explore humanities issues by means of
award-winning children's and young adults'
books," said Nancy Dixon.
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On Feb. 18, LEH PRIME TIME team
members from Shreveport's Volunteers of
America's LOUISIANA PROMISE initiative
welcomed 17 parents and 31 children to the
third session of this PRIME TIME
program. Many who attended were bilingual
but some spoke only Spanish or English. After
a big welcome, the families gathered to
hear scholar Janine Demerath and storyteller
Carol Hill de Santos present the book A
Spoon for Every Bite in English and
Spanish.
Families responded enthusiastically in
Spanish and English to questions centering on
the greed, trickery and motives of the
characters. The second story of the evening,
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, covered
the same topics but then led to the
participants comparing their system of
government to countries with kings and
queens. The program resembled a family
reunion in many aspects. Site coordinator
Deanna Martinez stated: "After the third
session, participants are building
relationships with one another. Some are from
Bossier and some from Shreveport but now they
are getting to know one another."
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Libraries in Florida, Michigan, New Jersey,
New York and Oklahoma were selected to
participate in the 2008 phase of the PRIME
TIME FAMILY READING TIME bilingual
national expansion, funded by a grant from
the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Florida sites that have scheduled programs
during the spring session include Clearwater
Main Library (February 26-April 1), and
Clewiston Library (April 21-May 27). Two New
Jersey sites will be held at the Paterson
Free Public Library (March 3-April 14) and
the Kearny Public Library (April 24-June 5).
Norman Public Library (Oklahoma) will offer
PRIME TIME April 8 - May 13, while
Queens Borough Public Library in New York has
scheduled their sessions May 22-June 26 at
Woodside Community Library. The first
Michigan PRIME TIME will be located at
Hoyt Public Library in Saginaw April 1-May 6.
Thirty-six states and the Virgin Islands have implemented PRIME TIME since the pilot program was developed in East Baton Rouge Parish in 1991 with a LEH grant. |
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Digging Deep - The Humanities Approach to
Family Literacy by Cathy Reta and Dianne
Brady appeared in the most recent edition of
Public Library Quarterly published by the
Haworth Information Press. Reta served as the
California State Project Director for PRIME
TIME in 2004-06 and Brady is the senior
consultant to the program after serving as
Director of PRIME TIME for more than ten
years. The article includes a section
titled "The PRIME TIME Difference" where
the authors explain: "From a distance the
PRIME TIME model looks like any other
family
literacy program, but it would be a mistake
to assume it is the same. Rather than
teaching reading skills, the primary goal of
PRIME TIME is to foster a love of reading,
talking about books, and a lifelong enjoyment
of libraries and their resources, which in
turn results in improved critical thinking,
gains in vocabulary and greater
self-confidence."
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The New Orleans Mid-City library
branch, 330
North Carrollton Ave., will host its first
RELIC program, beginning 6 p.m. March 27.
The reading program "Louisiana Characters:
Biographies of the Bayou State" will feature
a team of scholars from Loyola and Tulane
universities. Current RELIC programs are
experiencing large public attendance in
Lafayette, Ruston, Marksville, Colfax,
Monroe
and Haynesville. If you have missed
out on
any of these events or wish to be contacted
for any upcoming programs in your community,
be sure to contact the host library and
request that your name and information be
added to the library's outreach list. These
and other programs available in the winter
and spring can be found in the schedule.
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Just a reminder! The LEH will hold its annual
awards banquet at 12:30 p.m. March 29th at
Houmas House Plantation and Gardens in
Darrow, La., on the River Road just south of
Baton Rouge. During the ceremony, the LEH
will present its Humanist of the Year
award to New Orleans musician and teacher
Ellis Marsalis.
In addition, Dr. Norman Francis, long-time president of Xavier University in New Orleans, will receive the Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities. The Chair's Award for Institutional Support will go to the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier for its contributions and partnership in LEH's PRIME TIME programs in the Shreveport-Bossier area. Jennifer John Block's film "Reconstructing Creole" will receive the LEH's Humanities Documentary Film of the Year Award. Official recognition of the new state Poet Laureate, Dr. Darrell Bourque, of Lafayette, will be commemorated at the event.
Individual Achievement in the Humanities
awards will go to Dr. Delma
McLeod-Porter, a professor and
coordinator of developmental writing at
McNeese State University in Lake Charles;
Dr. J. Paul Leslie, a history
professor at Nicholls State University in
Thibodaux; and Jack Heflin, professor
of English at the University of Louisiana at
Monroe. Dr. John R. May, an English
professor at LSU in Baton Rouge, will receive
the Public Humanities Programming Award, and
the Humanities Book of the Year Award will go
to Bliss Broyard's One Drop: My
Father's Hidden Life-A Story of Race and
Family Secrets, a remarkable account
of a young woman's journey to discover her
racial identity in the wake of discovering
her father's African-American ancestry.
Teacher of the Year awards will be presented
to Catherine Green, a social studies
(history) teacher at Caddo Middle Magnet
School in Shreveport, and to Emmitt Glynn
III, who teaches political theory,
government and history of religion in America
at The Episcopal School in Baton Rouge.
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Houma - March 5-6: Fletcher Technical
Community College: "Writing Women Back Into
History," a series of public lectures,
performances and activities focusing on
Louisiana women's contributions to culture,
academia, labor and politics to mark Women's
History Month. For more information, call
985-857-3655 ext. 276.
Lafayette - March 26-30: 3rd Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival. Festival focuses on the sometimes celebratory, sometimes stereotypical depictions of Cajun and Creole culture in film. For festival schedule details, visit www.cinemaonthebayou.com. For more information, contact 337-235-7845. New Orleans - March 6: Scholar and novelist Dr. Maryse Conde will give a lecture titled "Mapping the New Frontier: New Identities and Fraternities in the Time of Globalization." Event is scheduled for 8 p.m. in the Louis J. Roussel Performance Hall at Loyola University, following a performance of Conde's play "Comme Deux Freres / Like Two Brothers," which begins at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call 504-865-2479
New Orleans - March 26-30: The
Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary
Festival 22nd Annual Event. For five days
this spring, The Tennessee Williams Festival
will light up the French Quarter with
culture, food and fun, bringing back some
favorite voices and exciting new ones as
well. Featured authors and artists include
Hal Crowther, Dan Menaker, Tift Merritt and
Lee Smith. For festival schedule details,
visit www.tennesseewilliams.net For
additional information, call 504-581-1144.
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The LEH - funded by two $1 million grants
from the U.S. Department of Education's
Teaching American History program - has
organized institutes in American
history this June for public school teachers
in Caddo and Calcasieu parishes. Three summer
institutes will be held in Caddo Parish in
partnership with LSUS and four institutes in
Calcasieu Parish in partnership with McNeese
State University. The LEH also
is serving as the fiscal agent for the
Algiers Charter School Association's Teaching
American History summer institutes for New
Orleans public school teachers.
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Documentary Film and Radio grant
deadline, April 25. Contact Walker Lasiter at
504-620-2631 or lasiter@leh.org
The Public Humanities grant deadline
is May 1. Contact Walker Lasiter at
504-620-2631 or lasiter@leh.org
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April 2008 marks the 7th Annual Celebration
of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM)! The
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of
American History has led this nationwide
effort to draw public attention to jazz as a
living and historical treasure and will kick
off this year's celebration, as it has in the
past, with a special program at the end of
March. This year's program will be a Town
Hall meeting hosted by Ramsey Lewis, host of
the Legends of Jazz radio and PBS television
series, to discuss jazz's global impact and
the role of jazz advocates in preserving
jazz's heritage and performance.
NEH has participated in JAM by featuring
jazz-related funded projects and resources on
the NEH website (www.neh.gov) and lesson
plans on EDSITEment
(http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=379
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