A $400,000 challenge grant has been awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to Appalachian State University for the Center for Appalachian Studies, the W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, and the Appalachian Cultural Museum. Each of these units supports research, education, and outreach to public schools,  local communities, and scholars.

   The Cratis D. Williams Humanities Endowment for Appalachian Studies challenge amounts to 1.2 million dollars, a three-to-one matching grant that needs to be raised by the university over the next three years.

   Appalachia is a region that continues to be misunderstood and misrepresented. According to Patricia Beaver, Director of the Center for Appalachian Studies, there have been many faulty assumptions made about the region and its people. "The region's history was white-washed and homogenized," she says. Scholars, as well as the cultural and news media, have overlooked the region's diversity and its economic and cultural complexity. "Appalachian studies is as much about looking ahead as it is studying the past," Beaver says.

   But without adequate documentation of the past and present, scholars will not be able to, in the words of Appalachian Cultural Museum Director Charles Watkins, "place Appalachia in the context of the nation and the world." Librarian Fred J. Hay observed in the successful NEH grant proposal: "In the same way that marginalized people such as Appalachian natives suffer from prejudice, misconceptions, and lack of resources, scholarship on marginalized people in the larger world of learning, and the institutions devoted to serving these populations also suffer."

   This endowment is designed to address these problems and concerns, and at the same time, to help move Appalachian Studies forward to a more sophisticated disciplinary level. Proceeds from the fully-funded $1.6 million Humanities Endowment for Appalachian Studies will provide the following:

• Research focused on regional diversity, and cross-cultural research on comparative mountain areas

• Visiting scholars representing new developments in regional scholarship
  
  
• Fellowships for school teachers and graduate students for summer study abroad and for field schools
  
  
• A part-time Assistant Director for the Center, an appointment which will allow the Center to pursue an expanded research agenda, region-wide curriculum building using new technologies, work with public schools, and community outreach and collaboration

• Become more proactive and competitive in locating and bidding for significant manuscript collections and other rare materials that need to be purchased quickly before being lost to non-Appalachian institutions or private collectors
  

• Expand the Collection's microfilmed newspaper runs to include the entire region
  
  
  
• Continue developing an already premier collection of regional maps (topographical, historical, tourist)
  
  
  
• Bolster music collections, including enhancing its already outstanding collection of shaped-note hymnals

Librarian Brenda Beasley and Archivist Kathryn Staley process materials from the Cratis D. Williams Collection. Behind them is Professor Williams's personal library.

1874 hymnal from the W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection

     Featuring educational programs, trips, special events, and exhibits, the Appalachian Cultural Museum presents the rich traditions of the people of Appachia. This is in keeping with the museum's mission to foster an understanding of the region for local and worldwide visitors, and for school groups. The Endowment provides the resources for the Museum to:

• Hire professional designers to develop top-of-the-line and aesthetically pleasing exhibits, using current technology
  
  
• Seek the expertise of leading scholars and consultants to develop scripts and to identify new artifacts for the Museum
  
  
• Create computer-generated, small-version panel exhibits from the original full-scale exhibitions for use in regional libraries and schools
  

• Design mobile exhibits to be made available to other institutions
  
  
• Publish exhibit catalogs
  
  
• Create opportunities for students of Museum Studies and Appalachian Studies to learn museum management and design skills firsthand
  
  
• Ensure proper preservation and care of an ever-growing material collection
  
  
• Present the most recent scholarship and interpretation of the extremely diverse Appalachia region

Please accept my/our pledge of $_____________ to be paid monthly, annually, or as follows:

OR

Please find enclosed my/our check in the amount of $_________________________.

Checks should be made payable to and mailed to:

     Appalachian State University Foundation
     ASU Box 32014
     Boone, NC 28608

Please designate your gift for the "Cratis D. Williams NEH Endowment Fund"

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Thank You!