Imagining America announces grant recipients

Imagining America announces grant recipients April 15, 2008Sara Millersemortim@syr.edu

Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (IA), the national Syracuse University-based consortium of more than 80 colleges and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts, humanities and design, has announced new local grant recipients. These grants will support new courses emphasizing public scholarship and practice; benefit some component of the community and SU students; demonstrate the likelihood of becoming sustainable; incorporate the arts, humanities or design; and serve a democratic purpose.

The 2008 Imagining America grant recipients are:

• M. Kristiina Montero, assistant professor of reading and language arts in SU’s School of Education, for “Local Literacies, Global Visions”;

• Steve Davis, professor of practice and chair of the newspaper department in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, for “South Side Community Coalition Monthly Newspaper”;

• Alison Mountz, assistant professor of geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and Margaret Himley and Andrew London, co-directors of the Syracuse University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Studies Program, for “Queering Syracuse”;

• Kendall Phillips, associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies, and Rachel Gazdick, assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), for “Rhetorics of Public Memory: Syracuse’s 15th Ward”;

• James Haywood Rolling Jr., dual associate professor of art education and teaching and leadership in SU’s School of Education, for “Rethinking Art Education Picture eBook Series”;

• Barbara Tagg, affiliate artist in VPA for “Practicum in Children’s Choir”; and

• Murali Venkatesh, associate professor and director of the Community and Information Technology Institute in SU’s School of Information Studies, for “Technology as Public Good.”

Two additional courses were funded as a joint project of Imagining America and Enitiative, the Syracuse Campus-Community Entrepreneurship Initiative. William Kelleher, associate professor of anthropology in the Maxwell School, received funding for “The Ethnography of the University: Studying Scholarship in Action,” and Joan Bryant, associate professor of African American studies, for “Black Syracuse: Organizing and Interpreting `Hidden’ Research Collections.” Enitiative is funded by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, focusing on entrepreneurship in the arts, technology and our neighborhoods.

A committee of four faculty and staff members assessed the proposals; committee members were: Lori Brown, assistant professor of architecture; Jan Cohen-Cruz, director of Imagining America and University Professor; Pamela Heintz, director of the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public & Community Service; and Louise Wetherbee Phelps, professor in the Writing Program in The College of Arts and Sciences.