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History Profs Win NEH Grant

December 10, 2014

Dr. Christine Lamberson and Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai, faculty in Angelo State University’s History Department, have been awarded a three-year, $99,982 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to preserve the experiences of West Texas military veterans and their families from World War I to the present and to examine how those experiences have changed or remained the same over the past century.

Awarded through the NEH’s Humanities Initiatives for Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) program, the grant will fund a project titled “West Texans and the Experience of War: World War I to the Present.” The project will provide ASU history and archive-focused students, as well as student veterans, with the opportunity to assist in producing a digital archive of documents and interviews attached to ASU’s Dr. Ralph R. Chase West Texas Collection. In addition, the project will co-sponsor a series of public presentations on World War I, starting in the fall of 2015, and host a series of roundtable discussions with local veterans.

Dr. Christine Lamberson Dr. Christine Lamberson “This project will ensure that the experiences of West Texas veterans and their families are not lost to history but are preserved and made available for researchers and the interested public,” Lamberson said. “The project also provides a great opportunity for ASU students to get hands-on experiences working in the humanities and to make connections with the broader West Texas community.”  

ASU was designated a Hispanic Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education in the fall of 2010. To qualify as a HSI, a university must have Hispanic enrollment exceeding 25 percent of the undergraduate population.

Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai The NEH on Tuesday announced grant awards totaling $17.9 million for 233 humanities projects, including research fellowships and awards for faculty, traveling exhibitions, the preservation of humanities collections at smaller institutions, and training programs to prepare libraries, museums and archives to preserve and enhance access to their collections.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the NEH 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 NEH and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov

For more information or to take part in the “West Texans and the Experience of War” project, email warstories@angelo.edu.