Dana Kress, Ph.D., scholar, historian, author and educator, has been named "2011 Humanist of the Year" by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. This and other statewide awards in the humanities will be presented at 12:30 p.m. April 2 at Houmas House Plantation and Gardens on River Road in Darrow, La., just south of Baton Rouge. For tickets to the awards ceremony or additional information, contact Brian Boyles at the LEH, 504-620-2622 or boyles@leh.org.

Each year, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, or LEH, honors Louisianians who have made outstanding contributions to the study and understanding of the humanities. Recipients of the 2011 LEH awards are:

Dana Kress, PhD

Humanist of the Year: Dana Kress, Ph.D., of Centenary College in Shreveport - Nominator Dr. David Rowe, president of Centenary College in Shreveport, described Kress as embodying "a deep commitment to life-long learning, a passionate engagement with the past that will help us transform the future, and a faith that education is the cornerstone of a life well-lived." Since arriving at Centenary with a doctorate in French from Vanderbilt University, Kress has revealed and greatly expanded our understanding of Louisiana's French heritage statewide, nationally, and internationally. Kress is responsible for founding the only French language newspaper in the United States, operated and written by college students, Le Tintamarre, and establishing Les Cahiers du Tintamarre and Les Editions Tintamarre - a press dedicated to re-printing, and printing for the first time, texts from the lost and suppressed history of French Louisiana. Kress is the editor-in-chief of this series of publications that now includes 40 published books, with ten more in preparation. In 2000, the French government named him a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques, among the world's oldest orders of chivalry, given to those who have made major contributions to the advancement of French culture worldwide.

In 1997 the Centenary College Alumni Association named Kress "Outstanding Teacher" and in 1998 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education dubbed him "Louisiana Professor of the Year." According to one Centenary student, "Dr. Kress is both witty and wise. He knows how to make the past live in the present and he's taught me that language is the root of all learning. He's the best." In the late 1990s, Kress received, among other honors, a special Humanities award from the LEH.

Lifetime Contribution to the Humanities: Patricia Gay of New Orleans - Gay is the Director of the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans, a position she has held since its inception in 1980. Through Patricia's leadership, the organization has grown from a staff of two and an annual budget of $100,000 to a staff of 45 full and part-time professionals with an annual budget of $6 million. Last year's Lifetime Contribution to the Humanities award went to Gloria Fiero, Ph.D. Professor Emerita in History and Art at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Chair's Award for Institutional Support: The Helis Foundation of New Orleans, for its significant contributions to the LEH over the past three years. It is one of the LEH's largest foundation supporters in the post-capital campaign era. Additionally, The Helis Foundation has been almost solely responsible for the acquisition of a significant number of John Scott sculptures, which makes the LEH, and its Humanities Center, home to the largest collection of John Scott's art in the world. Recent previous recipients include Phyllis Taylor, Friends of the Humanities of Lafayette, the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier, the National Endowment for the Humanities, LSU Press, Jones Walker Law Firm, Hibernia Bank, Freeport McMoRan Inc., Louisiana Public Broadcasting, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Public Humanities Programming: Jane Hood and the Nebraska Humanities Council - The Nebraska Humanities Council has been responsible for the second highest number of affiliate PRIME TIME sites in any state. PRIME TIME is the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities' national award-winning family literacy program that serves low-income families throughout Louisiana and in many other states.

Individual Achievement in the Humanities: Georgiann Potts of Monroe - In addition to teaching literature and serving as Special Projects Coordinator at the University of Louisiana-Monroe, Potts is also a freelance writer. But perhaps most relevant to this LEH honor is her participation in the LEH's Readings in Literature and Culture, or RELIC, a special adult reading program that partners with local libraries. She has lead 15 programs in six subjects since 2003.

Humanities Documentary Film of the Year: Walker Percy: A Documentary Film by Winston Riley of New Orleans - Walker Percy: A Documentary Film follows Percy's attempt to overcome a fateful family legacy of suicide and despair, place and history. A physician turned novelist, Percy won the National Book Award in 1962 for The Moviegoer, now an iconic novel describing a young man in New Orleans who searched for the meaning of life, a theme that occurs throughout Percy's other novels. Riley also weaves insights into this profoundly philosophical novelist's life through interviews with Robert Coles, Richard Ford, Walter Isaacson and others. Last year's award went toJennifer John Block'sAll Over but to Cry, a one-hour feature documentary about the struggle between man and nature when Hurricane Audrey struck rural Cameron Parish in 1957. 

Michael P. Smith Documentary Photography: Debbie Fleming Caffery of Breaux Bridge - Caffery's dedication to rural communities with strong agriculture and religious ties brought her to the sugarcane fields of Louisiana where she has photographed and documented the last generation of workers to harvest sugarcane by hand. Over the course of 30 years Caffery has had more than 20 one-woman exhibitions at museums and galleries, including the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and Galerie Camera Obscura in Paris. Her work is in the collections of more than 30 prestigious museums, including the Whitney, Metropolitan and Modern art museums in New York, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, among others. This award was first given in 2009 to Lafayette documentary photographer Philip Gould. Last year's award went to New Orleans photographer Syndey Byrd.

2011 Humanities Book of the Year: Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole, and American Indian Communities, published by the University Press of Mississippi and edited by Albert Valdman, Ph.D., and Kevin J. Rottet, Ph.D., who teach at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Drs. Valdman and Rottet, and the seven assistant editors, did a masterful job in compiling an educational and reference resource based on thorough scholarship. This Dictionary of Louisiana French is indispensible to the study of French culture in Louisiana. The 2010 Humanities Book of the Year Award went to Bienville's Dilemma, by Tulane professor Richard Campanella of New Orleans.

 In February, the LEH has scheduled two Teaching American History workshops for public school teachers in northwest and northeast Louisiana. Both grants are underwritten by two separate $1.6 million, five-year U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History grants secured and managed by the LEH for six public school districts in north Louisiana. They include:
 

• Ouachita Parish - On Feb. 16, the LEH, working with the National Archives & Records Service in Washington, D.C., will conduct a one-day, professional development workshop for American history teachers in Ouachita, Morehouse, Richland and East Carroll parishes and Monroe City Schools. During the program titledCool Educator Tools from the National Archives, teachers will learn about the vast online teaching resources and lesson plans available at the National Archives. They also will learn effective ways to use historic documents in their classrooms. Conducting the workshop will be David Rosenbaum, Education Specialist at the National Archives.
• Caddo Parish - On Feb. 17, the LEH, in partnership with Caddo Parish School System and the New York-based Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, will conduct a one-day, in-service, professional development workshop for Caddo Parish public school teachers. This stimulating and challenging one-day Teaching American History workshop will trace the evolving understanding of individual rights contained in the American Constitution from the colonial period to modern times. Guest speakers will include Professor Saul Cornell, Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History, Fordham University, and John McNamara, Education Coordinator, Gilder Lehrman Institute.

In a related matter, the LEH is now recruiting American history public school teachers in Caddo, Ouachita, Morehouse, Richland and East Carroll parishes, and Monroe City Schools to attend Summer Institutes in American History at LSU Shreveport and the University of Louisiana at Monroe this June.

Since 2003, the LEH has secured five Teaching American History grants, totaling $6.2 million, for the following school districts - Calcasieu, Caddo, East Carroll, Morehouse, Richland, Orleans and Ouachita parishes and Monroe City schools. In each program, the LEH partnered with area universities and other humanities organizations to provide tuition-free graduate credit summer institutes and in-service teacher professional development programs for American and social studies elementary, middle and high school teachers.

For additional information, contact LEH Deputy Director John R. Kemp at 504-620-2481 or kemp@leh.org.

Rev. David A. Boileau

The founding executive director of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, Rev. David A. Boileau, passed away this week at the age of 80. Father Dave, as he affectionately was known, founded the LEH, then the Louisiana Committee for the Humanities, in 1971 and served as Executive Director until 1980, then again briefly in 1982.  He also had served as the chairman and professor emeritus of the philosophy department at Loyola University where he taught for 30 years. Father Boileau earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Louvain in Belgium. A life-long advocate of civil and human rights, equality for women, and, with a special soft spot for the rights of labor, Father Dave also served as chaplain for the national Teamsters Union. A former basketball player at St. Bonaventure, the 6-foot-5-inch Boileau invariably called everyone around him "little buddy." He is remembered with great affection and respect by former students and colleagues.

Writers and documentary photographers, exploring Louisiana-related cultural topics, may be eligible to receive special grants up to $4,000 through the LEH's annual Louisiana Publishing Initiative grants program.

Grants are available for authors writing about non-fiction topics such as literature, history, languages, music, cultural anthropology, folk life or other humanities disciplines. Grants of $4,000 also are available for documentary photographers to document various aspects of Louisiana's diverse culture. All awards must culminate in a completed non-fiction, book-length manuscript. Novels, poetry and other forms of fiction are not eligible. The application deadline is Feb. 15.

Past recipients include Dictionary of Louisiana French: As Spoken in Cajun, Creole and American Indian Communities; Bliss Broyard's One Drop; Philip Gould's Louisiana's Capitol; Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's Africans in Colonial Louisiana; Elizabeth Mullener's Eyewitness: Tales of New Orleanians in World War II; and Plantations by the River by Jay Edwards.

For additional information, contact John R. Kemp at the LEH, 504-620-2481, kemp@leh.org, or visit Louisiana Publishing Initiative listed under Grants at www.leh.org.

The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, or LEH, announces the establishment of a new 20-member Advisory Council to support the Board of Directors in its development of LEH programs while widening its statewide community base.

Composed of scholars, institutional leaders, experienced project directors, and cultural luminaries, the proposed Advisory Council would reflect the regional and ethnic diversity that are chief among Louisiana's cultural assets. While empowered only to make programming recommendations and provide community input, the Council would review LEH programs for quality and impact, and advise the Board about the needs of communities and institutions.

"The Advisory Council's breadth and background," said LEH President and Executive Director Michael Sartisky, "would help us recruit LEH Board members based on their prospective contributions to institutional advancement without compromising our commitment to matters of broad ethnic and geographic diversity and scholarship. The LEH Board will retain sole fiduciary and policy responsibility for and governance of the LEH. The new Advisory Council will strengthen scholarly and community input without making the Board itself so large that it becomes awkward and unmanageable." 

The LEH is seeking nominations for an Advisory Board of up to 20 individuals to be elected by the LEH Nominations Committee to serve renewable two-year terms, meeting once annually.  Terms will commence April 1, 2011.

Letters of nomination, due March 1, should be sent to:

Michael Sartisky, PhD, President/Executive Director

Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities

938 Lafayette St., Suite 300

New Orleans, LA  70113

Lake Charles, New Iberia and Lafayette: For more than 160 live events and dozens of live radio and Internet broadcasts, the Louisiana Crossroads series has provided a top-notch showcase for regional and visiting artists in an intimate and accessible format. Join them in February for the following series of special Dash Rip Rock & The Swingin' Haymakers concerts:

• Live Broadcast! 7 p.m. Feb. 17, Central School Theater, 326 Pujo St., Lake Charles.
• 8 p.m. Feb. 18, Sliman Theater, 129 E Main St., New Iberia 
• 8 p.m. Feb. 19, Acadiana Center for the Arts Theater, 101 W. Vermilion St., Lafayette.

For more information call 337-233-7060, or visit acadianacenterforthearts.org/louisiana-crossroads.

New Orleans: The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) has partnered with The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) to develop Musical Louisiana: America's Cultural Heritage, a multi-year, statewide education initiative focusing on the unique music and cultural heritage of New Orleans and Louisiana. On Feb. 10, the LPO and the HNOC will host a free performance in St. Louis Cathedral entitled La Societe Philaharmonique, focusing on the role of free people of color in the development of the classical music tradition in New Orleans. For more information, call 504-523-6530 or visit http://www.lpomusic.com.  

New Orleans: The Friends of the Cabildo invite you to Coastal Conversations, a lecture series featuring experts from the humanities fields of history, ethics, cultural geography and cultural anthropology. At 6 p.m. Feb.17 at the Presbytere, 751 Chartres Street, Dr. Barry Keim and Dr. Robert A. Muller will discuss the impact of extreme weather upon our region, and draw from their book to detail the hurricane history of New Orleans and Louisiana. The presentation will detail the effects of the storms and discuss the Last Island Hurricane of 1856, Chenier Caminada Hurricane of 1893, the 1915 Hurricane that struck New Orleans, as well as Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1969, and Katrina in 2005, among others. This event is free and opened to the public. For more information, call 504-568-4995, or email Brittany Mulla at bmulla@crt.la.gov.

Shreveport - The Meadows Museum of Art, located on the campus of Centenary College, 2911 Centenary Boulevard, presents two exhibitions. The first show, Past and Present Focus Gallery: Visions and Visionaries, Works by David Holcombe, runs until Feb. 27. This exhibit is comprised of portraits that reflect the social interests of the artist, including elaborate political cartoons that comment on diverse subjects such as gun control, abortion and violence. Tributes to great thinkers, writers, painters and social activists from contemporary Louisiana are also featured. The second show, Past and Present: Copley to Warhol: 200 Years of American Art Celebrating the Centennial of the New Orleans Museum of Art, opens Feb. 19 and will run until mi-April. This exhibit will feature works by Thomas Sully, George Inness, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keefe, Lee Krasner and Andy Warhol among others. An exciting and important calendar of public programs has been developed to complement the works in this exhibition. For more information, call 318-869-5040, or visit www.centenary.edu/meadows/calendar.

The New Year marks several major milestones for PRIME TIME and we want to thank you, our partners and supporters for making it possible!  Numbers can be a powerful and simple way to convey meaning and today we want you to remember these PRIME TIME milestone numbers: 20; 1,000; 40,000 and 7,000,000!

First, we celebrate 20 years of sustained high quality, outcomes-driven and family focused programming. This, of course, could not have been possible without the resolute commitment of so many who have contributed resources, talent and time year after year to make this one of the most respected and sustained humanities-based family literacy programs in the nation. 

Second, at the end of 2010, PRIME TIME achieved the completion of over 1,000 programs throughout the nation. Since inception in 1991, 536 programs have been conducted in Louisiana; reaching over 20,000 participants. Nationally, 547 programs have been completed in other U.S. states and territories, reaching nearly 20,000 participants. In total, 1,083 programs have been conducted with individual participant graduation totaling approximately 40,000!

Lastly, since inception in 1991, more than $7 million has been invested in the development, implementation and evaluation of this unique program. With an emphasis on careful stewardship of public, private and federal dollars allocated to PRIME TIME, this overall investment represents a per participant cost of $175 - proof that quality does not have to be sacrificed for cost-effectiveness.

In 2010, the LEH released Stemming the Tide of Intergenerational Illiteracy: A Ten-Year Impact Study of PRIME TIME FAMILY READING TIME, a definitive longitudinal analysis of the program's impact on student achievement. This study conducted in Louisiana offers statistical evidence that this preemptive approach to addressing the problem of intergenerational illiteracy significantly improves student learning. PRIME TIME's at-risk students outperform their peers in virtually every subject area in virtually every grade.

Louisiana and the nation continue to struggle with illiteracy, poverty, crime and numerous other social ills that limit its growth and prosperity. PRIME TIME will continue to be part of the solution. 

We look forward to the next twenty years of delivering high quality humanities programming to children, families and communities in Louisiana and with the help of our partners, nationwide.

On March 18, PRIME TIME Associate Director Shantrell Adams will participate in a session at the 2011 Louisiana Library Association (LLA) Annual Conference in Lafayette. The session titled: "Connecting Libraries and Communities:  Try Your Luck with Grants and Resources from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities" will also feature Joyce Miller, editor of KnowLA LEH's recently launched encyclopedia of Louisiana history and culture, and Jim Segreto, director of RELIC, LEH's library-based reading and discussion program for adults. This program will introduce participants to the LEH and the grants and programs that are available to public and school libraries in Louisiana.Visit http://www.llaonline.org/ne/lla_conference.php for details on the LLA conference.

The PRIME TIME Training Workshop took place Jan. 15 - 16. Approximately 60 participants from Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan and Wisconsin joined the PRIME TIME staff and a group of experienced consultants for two days of intense instruction and practice based on the PRIME TIME methodology. 

The workshop was held at the Louisiana Humanities Center at Turners' Hall in New Orleans. As always, it was an enlightening and exciting occasion.  Please contact Shantrell Adams with questions regarding upcoming grant and training opportunities.

RELIC will receive a $10,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to develop and offer a public library reading and discussion program on the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and Emancipation. The grant is a special award to LEH's RELIC program through the NEH's We the People program.

The NEH initiative is the latest of its long running project "Let's Talk About It!" The new project is called, America's War: Talking about the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th Anniversaries. The program's content was developed by Edward L. Ayers, author of the award-winning book, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America, and creator of the web site, Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War, which has attracted millions of users and won major prizes in the teaching of history. Ayers is the president of the University of Richmond in Virginia.

The program, which will be open to the public, will run from November 2012 through May 2015. For more information about the program and its content, contact RELIC Director Jim Segreto at segreto@leh.org or 504-620-2477.

 On Feb. 22, the Louisiana Humanities Center will host the first of four conversations with local artists as part of the Center's new "People Say Project." Singer/songwriter Alex McMurray and hip-hop artist Truth Universal will be featured in a conversation with LHC Program Director Brian Boyles.

The People Say Project is a partnership between the LHC and Loyola University's English Department to produce a series of live interviews and an accompanying website, featuring local artists discussing the ways in which they make art and a living in the city today. In four events this spring, with focuses on music, the visual arts, theater, and the culinary arts, the People Say Project will bring together artists from across the spectrum to share their stories and views.

Students in the Developing Digital Content course at Loyola will develop content around the interviewees, including articles, media clips, slideshows and archival material. By building the site, the class will create a website reflecting the diverse artistic lives of eight culture bearers.  Stay tuned for more details on the site!

Events will be held Feb. 22 at the Louisiana Humanities Center, 938 Lafayette, with doors opening at 5:15 for a reception provided by local restaurants. The interviews will begin at 6 p.m., lasting approximately 40 minutes, with time for an audience Q&A. For more information, contact Brian Boyles at 504-620-2632 or boyles@leh.org.

 Here is your chance to send loved ones, your friends from college, a neighbor or maybe a few business associates one full year of the best Louisiana has to offer through a gift subscription to the award-winning Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine!

Four times a year over the next twelve months, they will be able to paddle the bayou, walk the French Quarter, and explore the Cane River. They will learn Louisiana's history from Hot Sauce to Hot Jazz and travel our towns from Abbeville to Zwolle. And finally, they will enjoy the work of our finest writers, photo-essayists, and artists all bringing forth the magic that comes from Louisiana's people and places, history and culture. The wonderful gift can be given quite easily for only $20. To purchase your gift subscriptions to Louisiana Cultural Vistas online, please click on www.leh.org for the order form or contact Jan Clifford at clifford@leh.org or call 504-620-2630.
 

February 1 marks the start of the second quarter in the LEH's 2010-2011 Annual Fund. We ask all newsletter readers to stand with us to defend culture and education - which have been devalued or overlooked in this era of extreme financial belt tightening.  Please consider making a tax-deductible donation of any size to the LEH. A gift of $50 or more entitles you to an annual subscription to the award-winning, quarterly Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine, while larger donations bring many additional benefits.

For details, visit our website www.leh.org and click on "Support the LEH" or contact Dr. Jeff A. Hale, director of institutional advancement at 504-606-4628 or hale@leh.org. If you are already a LEH supporter this fiscal year, please accept our sincere thanks.

 Starting March 25, moviegoers will once again enjoy the Louisiana classic Belizaire the Cajun on the big screen in Lafayette, New Orleans and other cities as the film that many called "the movie that taught the world it was cool to be Cajun" gets a 25th anniversary re-release.

The film was the first feature by director/writer/producer Glen Pitre, who has gone on to create more than three dozen features films, documentaries, books, radio series, oral history collections, and museum installations, mostly about Louisiana and often with the support of the LEH. In a 2006 book, America's most famous film critic, Roger Ebert, called Pitre "a legendary American regional director."

Belizaire the Cajun takes place on the antebellum Louisiana frontier where a wily herb doctor (the title character played by Armand Assante) must save his cousin's life, defeat murderous vigilantes, win a woman's heart, rescue an orphan's inheritance and, last but hardly least, escape the gallows. Reviewers called it: "A masterpiece," San Francisco Chronicle; "Beautiful and exhilarating," Los Angeles Weekly; and "Rich and often explosive," Hollywood Reporter. The New York Times said it had "the caginess of Br'er Rabbit, and leaves some haunting memories."

Back in 1985, with the support of the Sundance Institute and the people of Acadiana, Belizaire the Cajun, under the working title of Acadian Waltz, was filmed at multiple locations in Vermilion, Lafayette and St. Martin parishes. After premiering to acclaim in 1986 at major film festivals like Cannes, Toronto, Munich and Sundance, it went on to play in theaters and on TV around the world.

"It was so warmly received when it came out," says Pitre, "it's going to be fun for the people whose parents and grandparents have been talking about it for 25 years to finally see it. I hope they'll be as proud of its Louisiana made, Cajun story as I am."

For more information visit www.coteblanche.com