By Brittany Terwilliger
The Indiana University Office of the Bicentennial has awarded the second round of Bicentennial Project Grants and Bicentennial Course Development Grants to support activities that commemorate and chronicle IU's cultural and historical identity in ways that will inspire and engage the community.
The grant programs, launched by the IU Office of the Bicentennial in October 2016, are part of a multiyear, multicampus celebration of the 200th anniversary of the university's founding.
"The bicentennial provides us with a unique opportunity to develop initiatives that build on the historic strengths of Indiana University," said Kelly Kish, Indiana University's bicentennial director. "We hope that these grants will help staff, faculty, students, alumni and the public to connect IU's past, present and future."
Awardees include the Wylie House Museum and Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology. A three-year collaborative project involving an archaeological exploration of the Wylie House will examine the position of President Andrew Wylie's family and IU in the development of the city of Bloomington.
"The trend from subsistence farming to agriculture and floriculture in the 19th century, within the context of the developing academic community, reveals much about the university's cultural heritage," said April Sievert, director of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology. "Archaeological work at Wylie House stands to add significantly to the documentation of IU's oldest property."
Sarah Mincey, associate director of the Integrated Program in the Environment at IU's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, will use her Bicentennial Project Grant to update the IU Woodland Campus Historical Walking Tour. The first edition of "The Woodland Campus," a booklet highlighting the natural beauty of the IU Bloomington campus, was developed by Paul Weatherwax in 1966 and redesigned by Mincey and Burney Fischer in 2009. The booklet became very popular with visitors, requiring multiple reprints, and now Mincey's team aims to update the tour with new information and develop a corresponding smartphone application.
The Kinsey Institute will construct a multimedia historical exhibition for display in the halls and galleries of the newly restored Morrison Hall as part of the institute's 70th anniversary.
"The exhibition will celebrate our history, impact and resiliency, and memorialize the role that IU played in supporting intellectual freedom and exploration," said Nancy Ostrowski, associate director of the Kinsey Institute.
Exhibits will include video and audio recordings, historical photographs, contributions of Kinsey Institute directors, research findings and art, and may include a re-creation of a Kinsey-period room. The exhibition will tell the stories of prohibitions against portrayals of sexuality, the cultural suppression of sexual diversity, and the incredible persistence and fortitude of researchers devoted to shedding light on the facts about sexuality.
The Kinsey Institute will also receive a Bicentennial Course Development Grant to design a curriculum for the first module of a continuing education series on human sexuality, Kinsey Perspectives on Sexuality. The series of courses will be made available to professional societies and would meet their requirements for continuing education credits.
The second Bicentennial Course Development Grant will support Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis history professor Anita Morgan in the reconfiguration of a course on Indiana history. The course covers Indiana from before European settlement until the present day and will incorporate the development of IU and IUPUI into the larger context of the state's development.
These awardees join fall 2016 bicentennial grant recipients from IU Kokomo, IU South Bend, IU Southeast and the IU Auditorium, whose projects are underway or have been completed.
The Office of the Bicentennial will accept submissions of Bicentennial Project and Bicentennial Course Development proposals three times each year leading up to the bicentennial year, 2019-20. The next deadline is June 30. For more information about proposal guidelines, visit the IU Bicentennial website.
Brittany Terwilliger is communications and marketing manager with the Office of the Bicentennial.