September 29, 1999
MEMORANDUM
TO: Directors, Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers for 2000
FROM: The Seminars and Institutes Group
Division of Education Programs
SUBJECT: Preparation for 2000
Let us welcome you to the 2000 round of NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes for School Teachers. By now each of you should have received a copy of the official award letter and made plans to join us in Washington on October 18 and 19 for a meeting of all project directors for 2000.
One purpose of that meeting is to give you an opportunity to think through with us the delivery of the seminar or institute that you have proposed. There will be sessions during which you can talk with members of the NEH Grants Office, with NEH program staff, and with others who have received support to offer a summer program in 2000, some who are experienced and some who are new to the program.
The material contained in this welcoming letter is intended to start the process, and we hope you will read it before you travel to Washington. As you read what follows, you will see that the composition of an effective "dear colleague" letter is essential to the promotion and application stage. Let us invite you to bring a draft copy of your "dear colleague" letter with you to the project directors’ meeting.
Publicity
By November, NEH will have produced and distributed a poster that lists all the summer institutes and seminars that will be offered in the summer of 2000. The poster provides only titles, names of faculty, and information teachers require to request a "dear colleague" letter and application materials from each project. The NEH poster will be mailed to English and social studies department heads, to foreign language department heads, to most advanced placement teachers of humanities subjects, and directly to a variety of humanities teachers in middle and high school. Our goal is to reach elementary schools and every school in the country that includes grades 7 through 12 --over 75,000 schools in all. Copies of the poster will be sent as well to teachers who have recently participated in NEH-sponsored projects. We also make every effort to distribute this information to publishers and editors of appropriate journals and newsletters. A slightly expanded copy of the poster material will be posted on the Endowment's web site <http://www.neh.gov>. We eagerly supply batches of posters to anyone going to workshops, meetings, or conventions that include teachers. And finally, the poster is sent to anyone who contacts us and asks for information on NEH seminars and institutes.
Teachers may request information about as many seminars and institutes as they wish. They should receive from each project director a letter that gives them full information about the nature of the study, logistical details, and what is expected of them. This information is delivered in the form of the "dear colleague" letter described below. Included in the packet should be xeroxed copies of the application materials which are included with this letter.
Because of the recent decline in the number of seminars and institutes offered by the Endowment, we ask prospective applicants to choose and apply to only one project. In addition, we now state on the poster and in the application materials that "selection committees are charged to give first consideration to applicants who have not participated in an NEH-supported seminar or institute in the last three years." You will be reminded of these attempts to reach out to new constituencies several more times during the course of the year.
The "Dear Colleague" Letter
This letter serves to introduce your project to prospective applicants, it sets participant expectations, and it serves as your principal marketing tool. Former directors may be able to use a previous letter with a few modifications. New directors will have to start from scratch. As soon as you have a draft of this letter ready, please send us a copy so that we can look for possible problems and suggest any changes or additions that might be helpful. The following checklist of topics indicates those points that are covered in an effective letter.
1. The scope of the project and the general approach to the study. The assigned or core readings, the order in which topics will be discussed, and some explanation of the study's design should be included. Much of this material already exists in your successful proposal narrative.
2. An introduction to the core faculty who will participate, not listed separately, but as part of the narrative of the letter. It is especially important for seminar directors to do this effectively and not just list past publications, but rather introduce yourself and discuss your view of the project and how you approach the material to be covered.
3. Special characteristics or qualifications. Some institute proposals explicitly target teachers of certain grades or specific subjects. Some seminars, on the other hand, often find disciplinary diversity is a real asset and should probably establish as few prerequisites for participation as possible. (Foreign language competencies would be an exception.)
4. The number of meetings per week and the kinds of assignments expected, especially any written work. Seminars meet at least three times and more likely four times per week. Institutes are invariably more intensive because they put less emphasis on independent work. Both seminars and institutes should have writing assignments as a way of aiding discussion and furthering analysis and synthesis. While "traditional" graduate course papers are not appropriate, reports, personal or interpretive essays, critiques, journals, and contributions to a common record of the proceedings can all be effective.
5. Individual appointments. Seminar directors should mention their plans to keep office hours or schedule individual appointments over and above the seminar meeting times.
6. Academic resources. This would include information about the library: resources, summer hours, any arrangements you have made for carrels and study space, and relevant special collections. Provide details on the availability of computer or word-processing facilities, including (if possible) hours of operation, types of software that can be used, and information about access to e-mail.
7. Description of housing. It is important to provide all applicants with a clear idea of the provisions for housing you have made, together with the range of costs. Experience has shown that the more details people know about housing ahead of time, the likelier they are to be satisfied with their accommodations when they arrive on campus. This is especially true when there are multiple options.
8. The dispensing of the first check. Mention the amount of the stipend in your letter. The first check (1/3 to 1/2 of the stipend) is usually waiting for participants when they arrive, and pre-payment for housing and other items should not be required prior to their receiving that first check. The second check usually comes about halfway through the project. Participants going to overseas locations may receive their full stipends in advance.
9. The status of participants at the host institution. Experience has shown over and over again that designating participants as "students" and not differentiating them from others in residence during the summer can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings and problems. The best arrangement on most campuses is to have participants classified as "visiting scholars." This may be hard to do, but it is worth the effort.
10. The cultural and recreational resources available at the site or in the region.
11. A reminder of the application procedure and deadline. Include in your letter some version of the following statement: "Application information is included with this letter. Your completed application should be postmarked no later than March 1, 2000, and should be addressed as follows: (give your project's address; not NEH's)." We advise that the letter also contain the following statement: "Perhaps the most important part of the application is the application essay that must be submitted as part of the complete application. This essay should include any personal and academic information that is relevant; reasons for applying to the particular project; your interest, both intellectual and personal, in the topic; qualifications to do the work of the project and make a contribution to it; what you hope to accomplish by participation; and the relation of the study to your teaching."
The Application Information and Instructions
Attached is a four-page packet which contains an application cover-sheet and instructions. These four pages should be copied and attached to your finished "dear colleague" letter and sent in response to all requests for information about your project. The application cover-sheet of all successful applicants will eventually be forwarded to the Endowment and become part of our grant file. The instructions establish a set of minimum requirements for the application and describe how the selection process should operate. As project director, you have some flexibility to fit these instructions to the special circumstances of your project. For example, institute directors may wish to make the selection criteria more explicit as to what subjects the teacher/participants teach now and will teach in subsequent years. In addition, while all project directors must convene a selection committee, the composition of these committees may differ. Seminar selection committees have for years consisted of three members: the director, a school teacher who is often a local past participant in a previous seminar, and a colleague of the director who has special knowledge of the topic under study. Institute selection committees may be drawn from master teachers and scholars who will contribute to the project and include more than three members.
Other Important Things To Do Now
A task that cannot wait is securing adequate housing for your participants. Too often the housing situation turns out to be more problematic than the university housing office anticipates. While participants are characteristically enthusiastic and grateful for the summer study experience itself, we invariably receive a number of complaints about inadequate, substandard, unreasonably expensive, inconveniently located, or widely scattered housing. A vacant sorority or fraternity house, an isolated dormitory or dormitory wing (not shared with noisy undergraduates, cheerleader workshops, drum and bugle corps camps, etc.), a conference center, or a graduate student apartment complex are all possibilities to consider. It is very important that as many project participants as possible live in a manner that promotes a sense of community. Probably the most common complaint from past participants is about host institutions that did not make provision for proximate living. The ideal is an arrangement where participants live close to each other, if not in the same building, and have access to a common area for informal discussions and study. This is an extremely important aspect of the summer study experience.
The Endowment neither encourages nor discourages participants from bringing family members with them, but those who do will be responsible for their own living arrangements. In these cases, someone at the host institution should be available to assist in locating convenient lodging.
Let Us Know How We Can Help
If you have any questions, please feel free to call or e-mail the Seminars and Institutes Group at 202/606-8463, <sem-inst@neh.gov>, or individually:
Douglas Arnold 202/606-8225 darnold@neh.gov
Barbara Ashbrook 202/606-8388 bashbrook@neh.gov
Wilsonia Cherry 202/606-8495 wcherry@neh.gov
Joyce Ferguson 202/606-8463 jferguson@neh.gov
Jean Hughes 202/606-8471 jhughes@neh.gov
Enclosure: Application Information and Instructions