Lawrence presented with NEH Grant for Freshman Studies

Lawrence presented with NEH Grant for Freshman Studies
by Jessie AugustynLawrence University has been presented with a fund raising challenge, which, if met, could result in an extra $500,000.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has presented Lawrence with a Challenge Grant. If Lawrence raises $2 million by July 31, 2005, all $2.5 million will go to establish a permanent endowment for the Freshman Studies program.
The money raised will be spent to improve the program, including teacher training and a full-time academic support employee who would supplement instruction and supervise writing lab tutors. The grant will also supply more technological resources for students and bring in prominent guest speakers.
The extra funding will allow the director of Freshman Studies to attend conferences to discuss implementation of the program with other schools.
“For more than fifty years, Freshman Studies has been Lawrence’s signature course, and this NEH grant will secure and advance its place and purposes at Lawrence for generations to come,” said President Warch. “This grant is a wonderful testimony to the significance of Freshman Studies as an exemplar of liberal learning, and we are excited by and grateful for the NEH endorsement.
“Freshman Studies is the one course that our alumni most frequently cite as the most telling and lasting intellectual experience of their college years. The coincidence of receiving news of the grant just a few weeks after the death of former Lawrence President Nathan Pusey was not lost on me or others. The resulting endowment will be a fitting tribute to his great legacy at Lawrence.”
Pusey, who died Nov. of last year, established the Freshman Studies program in 1945 before leaving Lawrence to become the president of Harvard. Of the thirteen universities and colleges awarded the grant, Lawrence is one of only three private institutions to receive the award. This is the second time Lawrence has received the grant, the last time being a 1977 grant that allowed $150,000 for the renovations of Main Hall.
The NEH is an independent government institution dedicated to furthering the humanities.