The West Virginia Humanities Council announced that it has paused all its grants, effective immediately.
According to a statement released on behalf of the Council’s board of directors on April 21, the Council “was recently notified by the federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that support to our Council from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was being terminated.”
In a social media post on April 22, the Council indicated it was continuing some of its direct programming. However, the statement from the board of directors indicated that if the Congressionally-appropriated funding is not restored, the Council will close all of its activities.
According to the statement “The financial support received from NEH represents 50% of the Council’s annual budget. That funding is matched dollar-for-dollar by donations from West Virginians which together provide the funds that enable the Council to host events, provide programs, and support projects that preserve our state’s history and cultural heritage, and promote public discussions about issues that matter to West Virginians.”
Humanities Council Funds Jefferson County Projects
In Jefferson County, Humanities Council grants have funded several projects.
During the past two years, it has helped fund the Statehood and Civil War traveling exhibit that was displayed for several months at the Byrd Center in Shepherdstown, a 2023 teacher training program hosted at Shepherd University, and a new document display case in the Jefferson County Museum.
The Council also provides funding for ongoing programs, including the “talktheater” programming during the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival. Peggy McKowen, CATF Artistic Director spoke about the value of the Humanities Council support: “CATF is always grateful for the support and advocacy that the Humanities Council offers our summer programming. CATF’s popular talktheater series has been funded by the Humanities Council since the series began. It is the humanities programming at CATF that makes the festival experience more compelling and impactful. It is part of what makes CATF such a unique theatrical event. We hope that leadership at all levels recognizes the significance of the Humanities Council’s work and reinstates their funding, ends the pause, and reignites the humanities throughout the state.”
The Appalachian Heritage Writer in Residence Project is another long-running project supported by the Humanities Council. Professor Benjamin Bankhurst, the director of the Appalachian Studies Program, says that “the West Virginia Humanities Council has been a steadfast supporter of the Appalachian Heritage writer in Residence program at Shepherd University for over twenty years. It is through [the Humanities Council], specifically their grants program, that we have been able to bring internationally renowned authors, including Henry Louis Gates, Nikki Giovanni, and Barbara Kingsolver, among many others, to the Eastern Panhandle. Generations of regional high school and Shepherd students have benefited from the residency. We were, therefore, shocked and saddened to learn that our grant in support of the 2025 program had been cut.”
Bankhurst said that the University will be able to run the 2025 program, but on a smaller scale: “The Appalachian Studies program is committed to our community and we will run the program, albeit much altered in light of the cancellation of our NEH grant, and will welcome Annette Clapsaddle to campus as our writer-in-residence in September. We are fortunate to be in the position to continue the program – for this year at least. It is truly heartbreaking to consider the number of WVHC projects across West Virginia that will now vanish for want of funding.”
The West Virginia Humanities Council website is WVHumanities.org.