PROVIDENCE COLLEGE GALLERIES AWARDED FUNDING FROM THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES (NEH)
NEH awarded a total of $87.8 Million in relief funding for economic recovery to cultural and educational institutions
November 11, 2021 – Providence College (PC) announced today that it was awarded $313,966 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan. This relief was spread between 300 cultural and educational institutions throughout the US. The American Rescue Plan recognizes that cultural and educational sectors are essential components of the US economy and civic life.
These grants to approximately 90 colleges and universities provide emergency relief to help offset financial losses sustained by humanities organizations over the last 18 months. They will allow cultural and educational nonprofits to retain and rehire staff, and rebuild programs and projects that were disrupted by the pandemic.
Jamilee Lacy, director and chief curator of PC Galleries (PCG), said this grant will help fund a new project at PC titled “Multiplicity: Abstraction, Pattern & Identity in Limited-Edition Art.” “The project is intended to facilitate greater use of the art collection by various audiences, including not only PC faculty and students but also members of the public, especially those of neighboring high school and teen programs, community groups, and state-wide neighbors who desire experience and repeated engagement with contemporary art,” said Lacy.
This project includes the hiring of three part-time staff members and various contractors to integrate 75 recent contemporary art acquisitions into the permanent collection, to make accessible and mount semi-permanent thematic exhibits at Providence College Galleries and in various spaces across campus, and to produce an online catalog related to the project’s central concept.
Important objectives in the College’s PC200 strategic plan, adopted in November 2018, will now move forward such as the creation and maintenance of “high-impact learning practices and public spaces… [that are] conducive to community-building and co-curricular learning in ways that appreciate [the] diversity of people, experiences, and perspectives… through the promotion of multicultural understanding.”
This funding will also make a significant economic impact on the arts landscape in the state of Rhode Island. In addition to the hiring of three new staff at PCG, tens of thousands of dollars will be paid to local freelance arts consultants and vendors who will help PC realize what will be a transformative project for PCG’s collection, according to Lacy.
Founded in 1917, Providence College is the only college or university in the United States administered by the Dominican Friars. The Catholic, liberal arts college has an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 4,000 students and offers degrees in 50 academic majors. Since 1997, Providence College consistently has been ranked among the top five regional universities in the North according to U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges.”
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