UNC–Chapel Hill Awarded Major Federal Grant to Expand Civic Education

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the federal government is pouring tens of millions of dollars into shaping how American history, civic life, and national identity are studied, taught, and presented to the public. This week, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced more than $75 million in grants to support 84 humanities projects nationwide — including major initiatives tied directly to the U.S. semiquincentennial.

NEH awards $75.1 million in grants to 84 humanities projects, including research, education, and public programs on the U.S. 250th anniversary.https://t.co/BTjfwHTDFL pic.twitter.com/jkyubJJXxb
— National Endowment for the Humanities (@NEHgov) January 15, 2026

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New awards include 10 NEH Preservation and Access Education and Training grants to train museum, archival, and conservation professionals in new methods of preserving important records and artifacts of national cultural heritage. These include a grant to the American Institute of Physics to establish a cohort of archivists and librarians to develop practices for collecting, preserving, and enabling access to born-digital collections documenting the history of 21st-century science, technology, and engineering. An award to the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation will provide training to the nonprofit’s network of National Heritage Responders, who deploy to assist cultural organizations with on-the-ground salvage and other needs after natural disasters.
Twenty-seven NEH Fellowships and Awards for Faculty will support individual scholars in conducting archival research for publications on topics such as: the early history of schooling and education in the United States; the evolution of Morehouse College campus in Atlanta over 125 years; religious pilgrimage practices among Christians, Jews, and polytheists during the Roman Empire; and how the works of Leo Tolstoy shaped the ideologies of the Soviets and émigrés who fled the Bolshevik Revolution.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) has received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to expand civic education, scholarship and the preparation of future leaders grounded in American political thought, constitutionalism and the classical foundations of civic life.
The award includes a $10 million matching grant and $100,000 in outright funding and will support the creation of eight endowed professorships focused on American political thought and constitutionalism, the classical foundations of civic education, great books and leadership. Together, the investment advances SCiLL’s long-term goal of building a world-class civics school at the nation’s first public university, with national reach and lasting impact.

Jed Atkins, Dean and Director at SCiLL, said of the grant, "At a moment when civic trust is eroding and public debate is increasingly untethered from history, Americans need serious civic discourse and a renewed understanding of the ideas and institutions that make self-government possible."

"This grant enables Carolina to recruit world-class scholars of the foundational questions, texts, and traditions that have shaped American democracy and Western thought," Atkins continued. "By endowing these professorships, we ensure that future leaders confront the enduring questions of liberty, citizenship, and the human good that are essential to a flourishing pluralistic American democracy."

The sizable grant to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill underscores how central civic education has become to the NEH’s broader mission. As the country nears its 250th birthday, these initiatives will play a key role in determining which stories are preserved, emphasized, and passed on to future generations.