How to Apply

Applications are no longer being accepted for Summer 2024

Please read the following information carefully before applying:

Stipend, Tenure, and Conditions of Award

Teachers selected to participate as NEH Summer Scholars will receive a $1,300 stipend at the end of the workshop session. Stipends are intended to help defray travel, accommodations, and living expenses related to attendance. Stipends are taxable.

Participants are required to attend all scheduled meetings and to engage fully as professionals in all project activities.  Participants who do not complete the full tenure of the project will receive a reduced stipend.

Application Instructions

In any given year, an individual may apply to a maximum of two NEH summer programs, but may attend only one NEH program per summer. Once they have accepted an offer to attend any NEH Summer Program (Landmarks or Institutes), participants may not accept an additional offer or withdraw in order to accept a different offer.

Your completed application will be submitted in the form below, and includes:

  • Current CV that details your education, teaching, research, and relevant professional experience.
  • 500-word application essay. The essay should address the relevance of this workshop to your professional interests; your special perspectives, skills, or experiences that would contribute to the workshop; and how you expect this experience to enhance your teaching or professional service.
  • Application form

Submission of Applications and Notification Procedure

Applications are due by March 5, 2024.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance on April 5, 2024. All applicants will be notified of their acceptance, waitlist, or non-acceptance status by this date via email.Those who have been accepted will have until April 19, 2024 to accept or decline an offer.Once you have accepted an offer to attend any NEH Summer Program (NEH Landmarks Workshop, NEH Summer Seminar, or NEH Summer Institute), you may not withdraw in order to accept an offer from another program.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or age. For further information, write to the Equal Opportunity Officer, National Endowment for the Humanities, 400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024. TDD: 202-606-8282 (this is a special telephone device for the Deaf).

Eligibility Requirements

NEH-funded Institutes are professional development programs that convene K-12 educators or higher education faculty from across the nation to deepen their understanding of significant topics in the humanities and enrich their capacity for effective scholarship and teaching.

NEH-funded Landmarks of American History and Culture programs support a series of one-week residential, virtual, and combined format professional development workshops across the nation to enhance how K-12 educators, higher education faculty, and humanities professionals incorporate place-based approaches to humanities teaching and scholarship.

You are eligible to apply if you are a:

  • United States citizen, including those teaching abroad at U.S. chartered institutions and schools operated by the federal government;
  • resident of U.S. jurisdictions; or
  • foreign national who has been residing in the United States or its jurisdictions for at least the three years immediately preceding the application deadline.

You are not eligible to apply if you:

  • are a foreign national teaching abroad
  • are related to the project director(s)
  • are affiliated with the applicant institution (employees, currently enrolled students, etc.)
  • have been taught or advised in an academic capacity by the project director(s)
  • are delinquent in the repayment of federal debt (taxes, student loans, child support payments, and delinquent payroll taxes for household or other employees)
  • have been debarred or suspended by any federal department or agency
  • have attended a previous NEH professional development project (Seminars, Landmarks, or Institutes) led by the project director(s)

NEH does not require participants to have earned an advanced degree. In any given year, an individual may attend only one Institute or Landmarks workshop.  To be considered for selection, applicants must submit a complete application as indicated on the individual project’s website. Any questions about applications should be directed to the individual project team.

Participant Expectations

Project applicants who accept an offer to participate are expected to remain during the entire period of the program and to participate in its work on a full-time basis. If a participant is obliged through special circumstances to depart before the end of the program, it shall be the recipient institution’s responsibility to see that only a pro rata share of the stipend is received or that the appropriate pro rata share of the stipend is returned if the participant has already received the full stipend.

Once an applicant has accepted an offer to attend any NEH Summer Program (Seminar, Institute, or Landmark), they may not accept an additional offer or withdraw in order to accept a different offer.

Participants are required to submit a project evaluation.

Principles of Civility

NEH Seminars, Institutes, and Landmarks programs are intended to extend and deepen knowledge and understanding of the humanities by focusing on significant topics, texts, and issues; contribute to the intellectual vitality and professional development of participants; and foster a community of inquiry that provides models of excellence in scholarship and teaching.

NEH expects that project directors will take responsibility for encouraging an ethos of openness and respect, upholding the basic norms of civil discourse.

Seminar, Institute, and Landmarks presentations and discussions should be: 

  1. firmly grounded in rigorous scholarship, and thoughtful analysis; 
  2. conducted without partisan advocacy; 
  3. respectful of divergent views; 
  4. free of ad hominem commentary; and
  5. devoid of ethnic, religious, gender, disability, or racial bias. 

NEH welcomes comments, concerns, or suggestions on these principles at  questions@neh.gov