The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities suffered further cuts in its state appropriation in the recent session. The annual appropriation has been slashed by $1.5 million from its level in 2007-08.   As a consequence of these severe reductions in state funding, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities is forced to announce the suspension of the 2011-2012 grant cycle. Deadlines for Outreach, Public Humanities, Teacher Institutes for Advanced Study, Documentary Film and Radio, and Louisiana Publishing Initiative grants are suspended for the current LEH fiscal year beginning November 1st.

We remain fully committed to a sustained fight to reinstate an appropriate level of support from the state that will allow us to resume the funding of crucial programs to benefit communities and institutions through Louisiana. But without appropriate levels of state funding, this simply is not possible.

Consequence of Grant Cuts: The Loss is Principally to Our Partner Institutions

Over the past 40 years, the LEH has invested $66 million in projects and grants including approximately $25.3 million in grants to support more than 2,350 locally-initiated projects. For three decades the LEH has been the principal source of grant support for the production of documentary films in the state, 235 film and radio projects were supported with grants totaling $2,786,029. No films will be funded this year. Funding for American Routes, which the LEH supported for more than a decade, is eliminated.

At its peak funding from the state reached $2 million, created an economic impact of $14 million annually, and allowed the LEH to serve at-need communities that lacked the infrastructure to support cultural programming in their libraries, museums, schools, and local institutions. Competitive grants alone peaked at $813,257. This year, there will be none.

While never sufficient to reach every corner of the state, this funding was the key to preserving the rich traditions and diverse heritage of Louisiana. Those invaluable cultural and educational programs about life in this state are now at risk.

Aside from the suspension of the grants program, the LEH has been forced to eliminate the grants made to virtually every university in the state for Teacher Institutes for Advanced Study (TIAS), a professional development program of more than 200 high-level graduate seminars that graduated 4,185 teachers. These teachers teach 500,000 students annually. Two hundred teachers a year and the roughly 30,000 students they teach will NOT have the benefit of these TIAS seminars this year and every year these cuts persist.

The impact of these funding cuts does not fall solely on the LEH, but more importantly on the 605 organizations we have partnered with over the last 40 years, threatening the partnerships that have resulted in hundreds of festivals and exhibits benefiting thousands of our fellow citizens.

Drastic Reduction in Other LEH Projects

Beyond the suspension of the grants program, other LEH programs continue, but under the strain of these cuts. The mission of PRIME TIME FAMILY READING TIMEŽ, LEH's marquee humanities-focused and outcomes-based family literacy program, is to create the precondition for future learning among economically and educationally vulnerable families. With a twenty-year track record of implementation, refinement and innovation, PRIME TIME's methodology is proven to generate long-term improvements in student achievement by transforming families into units that continue to read and learn together long after the program ends.

Furthermore, a recent study of PRIME TIME's effect on the educational progress of at-risk children revealed a sustained impact eight to ten years after a child graduates from PRIME TIME in virtually every grade from 3rd-12th. The results outlined in the study's executive summary  "Stemming the Tide of Intergenerational Illiteracy: A Ten-Year Impact Study of PRIME TIME FAMILY READING TIME" prove that this approach works among the target population. Students who participated PRIME TIME outperformed the control group representing the entire district in the expected areas of English language arts and reading, and across other subject areas including mathematics, physical science, life science, algebra, number and number relations, geometry, etc. on grade level content areas of all three of Louisiana's statewide assessments (iLEAP, LEAP, and GEE). 

In previous years state support enabled this early childhood and family learning methodology to reach up to 30 communities per year, enrolling more than 1,200 parents and at-risk children.  State support allowed PRIME TIME to reach under-served communities with critical needs for programming and support. Through partnerships with corporations and private foundations, PRIME TIME continues to reach families and students in Louisiana, but at nowhere near the capacity needed in a poor state with ongoing education struggles. The current cuts leave those under-represented communities behind.

The long-running Readings in Literature and Culture (RELIC) program also faces the consequences of these cuts. Over its 28 years, RELIC conducted adult reading programs in parish libraries that reached more than 100,000 residents in 63 of 64 parishes. Today, the state funding cuts force RELIC to work only with libraries that can fund for programs themselves, in effect rolling back decades of progress that annually brought literature and history programs to every corner of Louisiana. Forty state-supported programs annually will be reduced to about a dozen locally supported programs.

Our award-winning magazine, Louisiana Cultural Vistas, will maintain a quarterly schedule, but print runs are reduced from 15,000 to 5,000 and readership from 50,000 to about 20,000. As long as possible, the magazine will continue to publish on schedule so that our readers continue to receive the most up-to-date work from the state's scholars, artists, writers, and photographers. The loss of Louisiana Cultural Vistas would mean the loss of the major documentation of the state's history and culture, and undermine cultural tourism.

We remain committed to the development of KnowLA, the online encyclopedia of Louisiana, and will continue to partner with foundations and other organizations to ensure that this cutting-edge digital reference tool provide access to our history and culture for students, teachers, scholars, and visitors.

In several cases, the LEH will reach into its financial reserves to maintain partnerships that simply cannot be put at risk due to the current climate. Through cooperative agreements with the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Liteary Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, and the LEH-founded Poet Laureate program, we will provide reduced but sustained funding to ensure that these organizations persevere through our present challenges.   While fully committed to this support, our ability to reach into these reserves is limited, and vulnerable to future cuts in funding.

As supporters of the LEH, you will be asked to help in the coming months as the Governor prepares the Executive Budget and the Legislature determines the State Budget's final form. Years of innovation and resilience will benefit us greatly as we address these cuts to state funding, but only with your continued partnership will we survive and maintain our mission. The unparalleled culture of Louisiana and the centuries-deep heritage of its citizens demand that we fight for a more robust future. I hope you will join us.

Sincerely,

Michael Sartisky, PhD

President/Executive Director