The University of Arizona Press
October 25, 2021
The University of Arizona Press is proud and excited to be part of a $400,000 grant awarded by the National Endowment of the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan: Humanities Organizations program, aimed at providing economic relief and recovery for cultural and educational institutions affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The grant represents a cross-institutional collaboration at its best to create Reclaiming Cultural Heritage in the Borderlands, a new project with the Press, the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, the Alfie Norville Gem and Mineral Museum, and the Writing Skills Improvement Program.
The goals behind the grant encompass achieving greater support for research that elevates local heritage and historically excluded narratives, expanding public access to cultural spaces and resources, and strengthening academic skills programs for underrepresented student populations. The Press will receive $125,000 from the grant to digitize additional backlist Latinx and Indigenous titles to further accessibility for students and scholars. Ten percent of the newly digitalized titles will be made available for free through Open Arizona, the Press’s open access platform.
“We are grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for enabling us to expand the reach of borderlands studies scholarship, an emphasis of our publishing program for more than sixty years,” said Kathryn Conrad, director of the University of Arizona Press.
The activities of the project under this grant align with the HSI and land-grant missions of the university. In 2018, the University of Arizona was designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education. The designation was awarded for the success in the enrollment of Hispanic students and in providing educational opportunities to them. The annual designation is defined by the Higher Education Act as an institution of higher education with an undergraduate student enrollment that is at least 25 percent Hispanic.
