St. Croix Landmarks Society Awarded $200,000 Planning Grant

ST. CROIX — The St. Croix Landmarks Society, Inc. has been awarded a $200,000 planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (N.E.H.) to establish a Provisional U.S. Virgin Islands Humanities Council, the society announced Saturday. Landmarks responded to an NEH Request for Proposals last October and was awarded the planning grant in April.

“We are extremely excited to have received this opportunity and over the next several months, we are scheduling a series of listening sessions with stakeholders across the Virgin Islands to get input on the development of a humanities agenda that is reflective of the history, culture and diversity of the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands,” said Executive Director Sonia Jacobs Dow.  “Our application received support from a broad cross section of humanities based groups, scholars and government officials from across the Virgin Islands; this support contributed to our application’s success.”

The N.E.H. defines the humanities as “the study and interpretation of language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence; philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; those aspects of social sciences which have humanistic content and employ humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment with particular attention to reflecting diverse heritage, traditions, and history and …the current conditions of national life.”

According to N.E.H., the main goal of the provisional organization is to develop a plan to support and publicize humanities programming throughout the territory.

“In addition to the Listening Sessions, we will also be conducting a survey to garner input from the public,” Mrs. Jacobs Dow said. “We will also be required to conduct at least one public humanities event in the first year.”

“We are inviting all humanities, arts, education and cultural preservation organizations and other interested persons to attend the Listening Sessions so that we can conduct an inventory of current programming and find out what people want to do in the future,” she added.

The first series of Listening Sessions are scheduled for:

• Tuesday, August 1st on St. Thomas at Victor’s Hideout from 7 pm to 9 pm.
• Wednesday, August 2nd on St. John at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church from 5 pm to 7 pm.
• Wednesday, August 9th on St. Croix at Estate Whim Museum from 5 pm to 7 pm.

For more information on the Provisional Humanities Council contact Sonia Jacobs Dow at the St. Croix Landmarks Society at [email protected] or 340-772-0598.