The Wyoming Humanities Council is pleased to announce the Humanities Matter! conference, which will take place October 23-24 at Central Wyoming College in Riverton.
The Wyoming Humanities Council’s Humanities Matter! conference will bring together representatives of community organizations, museum and library personnel, interested community members, and humanities faculty from across Wyoming to explore how to work together to create humanities courses and public programming that will address issues relevant to their lives, communities, and world.
To encourage collaboration between humanities scholars and community organizations following the conference, the council has created a special Humanities Matter! grant initiative to fund new projects in which college and university faculty work with museums, libraries, and other community organizations to serve their communities. Conference travel scholarships will also be available.
The conference keynote address will be given by David Berry, winner of the National Humanities Medal and Director of the Community College Humanities Association. He also sits on the board of Imagining America, a consortium of colleges and universities that (as stated on their website) promotes “scholarly and creative work jointly planned and carried out by university and community partners.”
Another conference highlight will be a workshop led by four representatives from the Art of Regional Change (ARC) program at the University of California, Davis: the director, two faculty members, and a community partner. As described on their website, ARC creates “community cultural development projects that involve faculty, students, and community members in collaborative, place-based storytelling.” The ARC workshop at Humanities Matter! will provide attendees with an overview of ARC programs and look at the benefits and challenges of combining academic and public work. ARC representatives will then be available to guide conference participants as they begin to put together their own community projects for the Humanities Matter! grant initiative.
Topics that will be addressed by Wyoming scholars and nonprofit representatives include how to create courses and public humanities programming for specific audiences, such as nurses or veterans; how to combine humanities courses and programming with the sciences or the arts; a roundtable discussion of successful humanities programming around the state; the importance of exposing Wyomingites to global cultures; and how to implement service learning, which integrates community service with instruction, into colleges and their communities.
Humanities Matter! is sponsored by the Wyoming Humanities Council, with support from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund; the Wyoming Community College Commission; the University of Wyoming American Studies Program; and the University of Wyoming Foundation. The conference is also made possible by the We the People initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Visit the council website or call Jenn Koiter at (307) 721-9248 for further information.
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