Colorado Humanities

Background Statement

A MESSAGE FROM OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Thank you for checking in on our work today, and for considering a donation to Colorado Humanities. Your support is key to the public humanities in Colorado and the relevance and sustainability of Colorado Humanities’ programming. I hope you will reach out to us with your ideas, hopes, concerns, and even personal stories to help guide and inspire our program development and implementation in the years to come.

Let me elaborate on a handful of our current programs here to illustrate the value and legacy of what your investment supports.

One of my favorite programs that Colorado Humanities provides statewide is Motheread/Fatheread Colorado (MFC), an early childhood and family literacy program with a standardized curriculum and materials aligned with Colorado Department of Education Academic Standards and essential skills requirements. We have provided this importantly successful program since 2004, adapting it to meet the changing needs of our state’s educational goals, and look forward to MFC’s future with dedication and enthusiasm. As a long-time literacy tutor, I profoundly appreciate this exceptional and powerful program. MFC promotes young children’s school-readiness and ongoing achievement in school by training preschool teachers, childcare providers, and parents in its tested technique to promote the early literacy and social-emotional learning children need to move forward in life with success. With the informed awareness and support of the MFC-trained adults around them, children learn early on the skills for reading that boost their school learning. They also learn how to express feelings and exchange ideas with confidence and eagerness, which also better prepares them for the changes they will face as they grow.

I’m also excited to tell you that we are now implementing facilitated community conversations about Colorado and the changes we are facing, and jump-starting each session with a free screening of our newly developed film, The Five States of Colorado. We produced the new film with HaveyPro Cinema and a 25-member advisory board of experts on Colorado topic, and premiered it this year. Five States is designed to educate, enhance awareness, and forge community connections for understanding and preparing for what the future will bring to our state. We have scheduled four of the Five States events through to February 1, 2024, and plan to offer more throughout that year. I encourage you to keep your eye on our website or contact our office for the evolving schedule to find when and where you could see this wonderful film and contribute your thoughts and ideas.

I’m eager to also share with you the news about our collaboration with local program partners and the Smithsonian Institution to bring the exhibit “Crossroads: Change in Rural America” to 10 communities throughout Colorado. The exhibit, which began this year in October at Walsenburg’s Museum of Friends, will tour the state to conclude on December 21, 2024, at the Gunnison Arts Center. “Crossroads” is part of the Smithsonian’s world-class Museum on Main Street series of traveling exhibits, and draws on the history and culture of rural America to provoke fresh thinking and spark conversations about the future and sustainability of rural communities. The exhibition will prompt discussions about what happened when America’s rural population became a minority of the country’s population and the ripple effects that continue today. Each of our program partners will offer ancillary activities and programs in conjunction with the exhibit that will provide opportunities to look at each community’s path over the past century and to consider and discuss the changes that have affected our present lives and will influence our futures.

In the coming year we look forward to bringing you more engaging programs and special events that are designed to appeal to a wide variety of audiences and to showcase the range and depth of the humanities in Colorado. We need, welcome, and deeply appreciate your support today. Thank you!

-Taffy Lee, Board Chair

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MORE ABOUT COLORADO HUMANITIES

We believe humanities education is fundamental to democratic societies, and vital to a thriving Colorado.

We believe the humanities are for everyone.

We believe the humanities are for you.

Why? The humanities preserve our valued traditions and transmit them from generation to generation. The humanities listen to the voices of many generations and share them through history, literature, philosophy, ethics, religion, languages, archaeology, and all the other areas of thought and culture that make up the record of human activity.

The humanities have practical applications for everyday life. They offer individuals and societies the opportunity to test ideas or actions and to imagine their consequences. The humanities provide a context for envisioning the impact—positive and negative—of new ideas in our cultural, political, and social lives. They benefit people by helping them to think about and to consider life’s surprises and challenges before they happen and by giving strength when they do happen. The humanities help us to make informed decisions.

The humanities help us answer big questions. What is the meaning, value, and purpose of human life? What is justice? What is equality? What is freedom? How might a just society function? How do individuals relate to the state and society? What are the moral consequences of human action? Why do both cruelty and good exist? How do people best work together?

Learning in the humanities contributes to our individual and collective wisdom and vision. It helps us to understand and interpret politics, religion, economics, ethics, international relations, and social and community values. It clarifies our roles as citizens in a democratic society, and encourages our informed participation in our communities.

Learning in the humanities opens us to the experiences of others and allows us to understand what we haven’t experienced ourselves, gives us the means to recognize the common ground shared by all varieties of human thought and endeavor and to bring about connections among them.

We believe in our work to further community-based humanities learning. From all our board, staff, program partners, and program participants, thank you for believing in it too, for being a part of our family of friends and supporters, and for donating today.

Colorado Humanities, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was established in 1974, nine years after the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act was signed into law and the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) was founded. We are one of 56 humanities councils, and joined the Federation of State Humanities Councils when it was established in 1977. Our focus is to design and implement humanities programs, community conversations, resources, and other activities. We have forged hundreds of community partnerships, and have created more than 95 unique educational initiatives in our 49-year history. Our dynamic humanities programs stimulate informed civic dialogue, community engagement, and life-long learning. We reach an estimated 350,000 people each year as program partners, participants, and audiences.

Our current programs include:

Black History Live

Change in Rural Colorado

Changing the Legacy of Race & Ethnicity

Colorado Book Awards

Colorado Center for the Book and History Speakers Bureaus

Colorado Poet Laureate

The Five States of Colorado

High Plains Chautauqua

History Alive! Colorado West Chautauqua

History Live Durango: Durango Chautauqua

Hispanic Heritage Live

Motheread/Fatheread Colorado

Museum on Main Street/Crossroads: Change in Rural America

Young Chautauqua

Want to know more? You can read detailed descriptions of each program by scrolling down to Organizational Data and clicking "Programs" in the left hand column.