Spring 2001

Calendar

Exhibits

• Annual Report
• Grant Marks "Yesterday's Tomorrows" Tour Opening
• Council Membership Grows By Four
• Mini Grants Fund Four Projects
• Plan Now For A Spring/Summer Program!
• Check Out New Middle East Resources
• News From Our Projects: "Projects In Action"
• Subscribe Now For "NewsBytes"
• Culture Tour Welcomes New Presenters, Sites
• "Imagining Michigan" - A State Cultural Caucus

Grant Marks 'Yesterday's Tomorrows' Tour Opening

The community of Greenville launched the Smithsonian Institution's "Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future" touring exhibit with a champagne gala and silver ribbon cutting ceremony March 16, welcoming the exhibition as it began a 10-month tour of Michigan. The exhibit will be on display at the Greenville Area Community Center through April 28, after which it will travel to Tecumseh and then on to sites in Ironwood, Rogers City and Leland.

Adding to the Greenville festivities was announcement of a $3,500 grant from Meijer in support of community programs related to the Michigan Humanities Council-sponsored tour of the Smithsonian Institution's Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) exhibit. Dr. Eric Rabkin, "Yesterday's Tomorrows" project scholar from the University of Michigan, delivered a grand opening message on perspectives of the past and future. Also in attendance were Carol Harsh from the Smithsonian SITES staff, Council Executive Director Rick Knupfer and Michigan tour coordinator LuAnn Kern.
Through objects of popular culture and advertising and media images and messages from the late 19th through 20th century, the exhibit examines past ideas of what the future would hold for this country and explores how such ideas have shaped contemporary attitudes and values. Its presentation encourages viewers to examine their own ideas of what lies ahead for such areas as community, home, transportation and daily life.

Greenville's host for the exhibit, the Flat River Historical Society, had organized an antique car show, book display at the library and began a children's story time dealing with the topic of the future in conjunction with the exhibit's opening in March. For the opening event the society and community groups had assembled their own exhibits to complement the SITES display. Youth-created robots, a mural depicting views of the future by Montcalm Community College art students, and prototype and past business product displays by hometown companies Frigidaire and Meijer showed many of the community's own creative touches to explore the subject of the future.

Upcoming events in April related to the exhibit's visit to Greenville are lectures on religion and, ethics and law of the future (April 3 and April 12, respectively), an April 6 light show, variety shows April 27-28 and a time capsule celebration as the exhibit closes April 28. For additional information, contact the local exhibit web site at http://www.pathwaynet.com/local/smithsonian.

Tecumseh Area Historical Society in Lenawee County will host "Yesterday's Tomorrows" at its museum May 4-June 20, opening community activities related to the exhibit with a May 13 gala concert and award ceremony at the Tecumseh Civic Auditorium. A six-event lecture series on aspects of the future May 19-June 23 will examine such topics as local history, the future in film, the "myth of progress," architecture and community planning and the automotive industry. More information is available at the society's web site at http://historictecumseh.com.

"Yesterday's Tomorrows" is part of the "Museum on Main Street" program which places national touring exhibits from the Smithsonian in smaller rural communities which normally don't have access to such resources due to space and cost limitations. This is the third Museum on Main Street exhibit brought to the state by Michigan Humanities Council. For more information on the "Yesterday's Tomorrows" tour of Michigan, visit the Council's web site at http://michiganhumanities.org.

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Council Membership Grows by Four

Michigan Humanities Council Chair Stephen Williams announces the Council's election of four new board members in January who will be welcomed by the Council for their first meeting in May. Each will serve a four-year term.

Newly elected to Council membership are:

Susan Burns of Detroit is the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Vice President for Development and comes to the Council with extensive marketing and development experience in the arts. She received a bachelor's degree in music management and performance from Wayne State University and has held positions with symphony orchestras in Dearborn and Grand Rapids as well as in Chattanooga, TN, and Jacksonville, FL. Most recently, she directed planned giving and a $45-million capital campaign for the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Michael D. Evans of Battle Creek is Executive Director of Heritage Battle Creek, an organization that directs the programs of the Historical Society of Battle Creek, the Sojourner Truth Institute of Battle Creek, the Kimball House Museum and Heritage Battle Creek Research Center. He has a B.A. degree in journalism and public relations from Western Michigan University and was a staff writer on the Kalamazoo Gazette in the mid-1990s prior to becoming executive director of the Battle Creek Community Chorus and then moving to Heritage Battle Creek.

Native Detroiter Helen Love is a recent retiree of the Ford Motor Company, where she had served in civic affairs, community relations and internal communications positions since 1984. Her professional experience includes program development and production of local, cable and public television programs in metro Detroit and earlier in her career in New York. She currently markets a multi-cultural guide, Global Journeys in Metro Detroit, a concept which she developed and whose proceeds benefit New Detroit, Inc. Her B.A. degree is from the University of Michigan.

A retired Dearborn School District social studies teacher and director of its Gifted and Talented program, James A. McConnell of Livonia has remained active in educational circles. He serves on boards of the Michigan Council for History Education and the Historical Society of Michigan, handles duties as newsletter editor of the Michigan Council for the Social Studies and was a member of the Michigan Social Studies Education Project Task Force, among other connections with the field. His undergraduate degree is from Albion College, and he received an M.A. in history and a Ph.D. in curriculum development from Wayne State University.

Council membership involves the 25-person board in responsibilities ranging from program and proposal review, planning, fund-raising, advocacy for the public humanities, liaison to projects and other representation of the Council at activities around the state. Six members of the Council are gubernatorial appointees while 19 are elected by the Council under guidelines to meet program and advancement needs and reflect overall demographic balance.

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Mini Grants Fund Four Projects

A Michigan visit by a nationally prominent novelist, a public forum examining potential for a common language about agricultural architecture and two efforts to document regional heritage and culture have received Mini Grant support from Michigan Humanities Council in early 2001 under the "Creating Vision for the New Century: The Humanities and the Strengthening of Michigan's Communities" program theme.

On May 16, the Dowagiac Dogwood Fine Arts Festival will feature an evening community lecture, reading and school visit by prize-winning novelist E. L. Doctorow whose works include City of God, Ragtime, The Waterworks and Billy Bathgate. Doctorow will meet a group of students from Dowagiac Union High School who are studying Ragtime in their English classes to discuss his work and profession. The Doctorow lecture will be at 7:30 P.M. at Central Middle School in Dowagiac (http://www.dogwoodfinearts.org/).
Projects to document regional heritage and culture will take place in the Grand Traverse area and in Iron County's once-active iron mining country.

In northwest Michigan, the Land Information Access Association of Traverse City will extend its earlier initiative to capture information on the region's heritage, arts and environmental resources with creation of a multimedia inventory and dissemination of data to increase public knowledge and awareness of the interrelationships of these resources. It will also sponsor a second "Landscapes of Community" public gathering in fall to build on its first successful event by that name in June, 2000, which is being documented on an Internet site.

An Iron County Museum publication project at Caspian, which will culminate in summer with memorial services remembering the area's iron miners, will document the 100-year history of the industry that gave the county its name. Oral histories, photographs, mining industry and labor records and archival and newspaper research will be used in documenting the industrial story.

Council grant support also assisted the Michigan Barn Preservation Network in hosting "Understanding the Farmstead: 150 Years of Agricultural Buildings in the Great Lakes Region," a one-day forum March 9 in East Lansing at which participants addressed the need for a mutual language for advancing study of barns and other farm buildings.

Mini Grants-offering up to $3,000 for public humanities projects-are being phased out after the upcoming June 15 deadline to accommodate a new menu of grant opportunities that go into effect Sept. 1. April 15 is the final deadline for Collaborative Projects in Communities grants, which award funds up to $12,000 for partnership projects involving three or more cooperating organizations and are also being replaced.

For more information, guidelines and application forms for current grant programs and those beginning Sept. 1, contact the Council's Central Office in Lansing at 517/372-7770; they're also found on the Council's web site at http://michiganhumanities.org/grants.

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Plan Now for a Spring/Summer Program!

Michigan Humanities Council's Resource Center encourages use of resources from its collection of more than 300 titles available for loan, promoting monthly themes around which community organizations can plan local humanities activities. Find these and many other relevant and interesting resources in the center's Media and Exhibit Library at http://www.michiganhumanities.org/mediaguide/.

• April Theme: Reflecting on Language & Literature."The Power of Myth" (video series), "An Introduction to William Faulkner's Fiction" (video, lecture guide), and "Voices and Visions" (video series, discussion guide).
• May Theme: Impression of Michigan & the Great Lakes. "Forjando una Comunidad: A History of Mexicans in Detroit" (video), "The Greatest Lakes" (video), and "Grand Rapids Made" (video).
• June Theme: Preservation I: Architecture and Land Use Studies.
• July Theme: The American Experience
  
  For information about these and other resources, visit the web site or contact Michael Pankow, Resource Center coordinator, at resources@voyager.net or 517/372-7770.
  

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Check Out New Middle East Resources

Updated ROADS Culture Kits on Middle Eastern Cultures are now available-new elementary and secondary level editions of our popular kits that include additional resources on Persia and Turkey plus up-to-date contemporary materials. We'll ship a kit ($75 per month), or you can arrange to pick up one at the Council's Central Office in Lansing ($60 per month). Resource Center members receive a $25 discount on all rentals. Information on the kits and rentals is available at http://www.michiganhumanities.org/roads.

New supplementary resources topical to Middle Eastern cultures are also offered in the Media and Exhibit Library for uses complementing Middle Eastern Culture Kit rentals or to borrow separately for up to two weeks. Resource Center members have free access to all Media and Exhibit Library resources. We ship statewide. Call 517/372-7770 to arrange to borrow these new resources or browse the whole Media and Exhibit Library collection at http://www.michiganhumanities.org/mediaguide.

Teachers: Summer is just around the corner and school may be closed for the summer, but Michigan Humanities Council Resource Center is open. The center is on-line at http://michiganhumanities.org/resources or call 517/372-7770 to access high-quality, educational resources perfect to supplement and enhance your upcoming summer program. Continue saving with your annual Resource Center membership or join now to save throughout the 2001-02 school year. Individual annual memberships are $25; organizations join for $100.

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News from Our Projects: 'Project in Action'

Michigan Humanities Council's web site now features examples of work going on around the state as a result of direct grants from the Council to community organizations. "Project in Action" features are indicated in the site's Funded Projects pages (http://www.michiganhumanities.org/projects/) by a yellow icon box within descriptions of listed projects. Watch for them-they're designed to provide examples of humanities projects for other grant applicants and project directors as well as give insights into how the humanities are integrated into many aspects of community life around Michigan.

Project directors are encouraged to submit news and updates for this on-line feature as their projects develop and to promote plans for their public activities. Direct "Project in Action" information to Nancy Mathews at paomihum@voyager.net.

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Subscribe Now for 'NewsBytes'

Keep up to date on activities and news in the world of the humanities with Michigan Humanities Council's electronic NewsBytes, a new e-mail service of timely communication from your state humanities council. Information for subscribing is available on the Council's web site at http://www.michiganhumanities.org/newsbytes/index.html.

Sign up today for these periodic e-mailings and you might also win a year's subscription to Humanities magazine, the bi-monthly publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities or other valuable gifts!

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Culture Tour Welcomes New Presenters, Sites

Four new presenters have joined Michigan's Great Outdoors Culture Tour for summer, 2001. Musicians Dan Hall of Flint and Corinne Rockow of Marquette, storyteller-musician Genot Picor of Macomb and Native American artist-storyteller Anny Hubbard of Sault Ste. Marie will be among 20 presenters providing colorful and informative programs on the six-week series July 1-Aug. 14 at recreation areas and tourism venues in northern Lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.

New venues for 2001 include Nichols Lake National Forest Campground near Woodland Park in Newaygo County, the Superior Central School's Outdoor Center at Eben in Alger County, Perkins Park at Big Bay in Marquette County and the Iron County Museum in Iron County. Returning as sites hosting Culture Tour programs after a year's absence are the Calumet Theatre in Calumet, Twin Lakes State Park in Houghton County and Tawas Point State Park in East Tawas.

Programs are free and open to the public; the majority of them take place in local, State and National Parks and National Forest recreation areas as well as in other small communities. The complete list of Culture Tour programs and sites for 2001 are now listed on the Council's web site at http://michiganhumanities.org/culturetour and will be available in brochure form in April; to receive a copy of the brochure by mail, contact the Council's Lansing office at 517/372-7770 or northern office at 906/789-9471.

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'Imagining Michigan' - A State Cultural Caucus

On May 8, "Imagining Michigan," the second annual state cultural caucus, will assemble 100 leaders and practitioners in the arts and humanities at the Kellogg Center in East Lansing. Co-hosted by Imagining America at the University of Michigan and the Center for Great Lakes Culture at Michigan State University, "Imagining Michigan" will bring together Michigan Humanities Council, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the higher education community and local artists and humanists from across the state.

The focus for this year's event will be on successful campus-community collaborations in the arts and humanities as a means to strengthen citizenship and learning through the state's arts and humanities resources. "Imagining Michigan" offers state cultural leaders, artists and humanists opportunities to jointly explore ways of uniting the energies of the public and nonprofit cultural sectors and higher education.

Space at the caucus is limited, but persons interested in participating may contact Kristin Hass at 734/615 8370 or e-mail (kah@umich.edu) for more information.