Program Endowment

Acquisition and Access Endowment
Making collections available for research is a labor-intensive activity. Collections must be organized, catalogued, and preserved before they are available to researchers; and while many of the collections at the AHC are donated, it is sometimes important to acquire a specific item or an entire collection that is available only through purchase. Collection inventories and guides are published and electronic access is used as a means of making materials available to an audience that is geographically dispersed. Funding for the acquisition, preservation, processing, and cataloging of collections is an integral step in making important historical documents available for research. The endowment of this program would providing the resources to selectively purchase historically important collections and to make the Center’s collections accessible to researchers.

Digital Initiative Program Endowment
The creation of digital collections and the use of the Web can provide access to cultural and historical materials that are available currently only through physical access. In recent years, the American Heritage Center has provided national leadership in the area of digitization, particularly in the development of standards to ensure that digital material can be retrieved, accessed, and preserved over decades. The expert faculty of the AHC has been working to create new digital versions of selected manuscript collections, as part of our Digital Initiative Program. These new digital collections will benefit our students and researchers by increasing their level of access to our materials, while allowing our reference staff to provide a higher level of efficient reference assistance. At the same time, this program will also help to preserve original, historically significant, primary source materials by reducing the wear and tear to which they are subjected during research use. The conversion of manuscripts, photographs and other materials to electronic form—from preparation and conversion to presentation and preservation—encompasses a range of procedures and technologies that are deceptively complex and require significant investments in hardware, software, training, and staff hours. The funding of this program will make this valuable work possible while advancing scholarship and research.

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Program Enhancement

The Alan K. Simpson Institute for Western Politics and Leadership
Named in honor of UW alumnus and former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson, the Alan K. Simpson Institute for Western Politics and Leadership provides a wide range of programs including publications, symposia, and lectures based on the Western history collections of the AHC.

The AHC is currently seeking funding for the advancement of the Simpson Institute. This funding will be used to hire additional staff for processing the collections of the Institute and making them available to students and scholars for important research. Just as importantly, these monies will be used to further increase the visibility and outreach of the Simpson Institute through educational programs, symposia, and publications.

Wyoming History Day Program
It is the University of Wyoming’s commitment to the State of Wyoming and to providing leadership in primary education that has involved the AHC in coordinating the Wyoming History Day Program. This is a national and state program that provides a unique opportunity for students (grades 6-12) to study and learn historical issues, ideas, people and events.

Two things seem to prevent more students around the state from participating in History Day: lack of awareness and lack of funds. In some cases, teachers have simply not heard about the educational excellence History Day students can gain. In other cases, the cost of participation can exclude individual students or entire school districts.

The AHC is currently seeking funding to ensure that no student is denied the opportunity to participate. Contributions will allow the AHC to: fully fund a History Day Coordinator; to provide small research grants to promising students in need; to help with the travel expenses of students who qualify to go to the National level contest; and strengthen the effort to promote History Day participation by providing teacher workshops.

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Program Development

The Outreach and Education Program
The Outreach and Education Program makes the collections and expertise of the AHC more accessible to the University of Wyoming community and beyond, assisting in the academic and research efforts of students of all ages, scholars and lay researchers. Each year, countless students and researchers—from all over UW campus, the State of Wyoming, the Rocky Mountain Region, the nation and the world—take part in the innovative and effective programs initiated by the AHC, including classes, performances, lectures/presentations, symposiums, and workshops, almost all of which are free and open to the public.

The Outreach & Education Program helps students, faculty, scholars and the general public come to recognize what the AHC has known for years: that there is no substitute for primary source research, which can make history come to life and unlock the door to learning for people of all ages and levels of experience, fostering creativity and challenging us all to think in new ways. Gifts to this program will provide vital support in the American Heritage Center’s ongoing initiative to support learning and research in our own community and beyond.

The Conservation Program
The American Heritage Center, in collaboration with the University of Wyoming’s Libraries and the UW Art Museum, has embarked on the founding of a Conservation Program in an effort to help protect and conserve the most fragile, damaged materials housed at the University of Wyoming. We aim to ensure the protection and future use of these items—precious manuscripts and photographs, rare books, and treasured art pieces—that are in jeopardy of being lost forever. Thus, this important program will create a full time professional Conservator position that will work in conjunction with each of these divisions of the university. This endowed program will also provide funding for the necessary materials and equipment that will allow this conservation work to be effective, safeguarding these treasures of national importance.

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Capital Improvements

Shelving for AHC Collections
In 1993, the AHC moved into a facility specifically designed to house and preserve special collections. Environment, security, and access were integrated into the building’s design. The AHC is a growing archive and continues to acquire collections in areas of distinction. The facility was constructed for future growth and has the capacity to expand its storage space with the installation of compact mobile shelving. Now, almost a decade after construction, the AHC is ready to install high-density storage shelving in four key areas of the AHC. This new shelving will maximize storage capacity in the most economical and efficient way and allow for approximately twenty years of selective growth in special collections.

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Other Opportunities

There are many other exciting giving opportunities at the American Heritage Center. We welcome your interests in learning more. Contact us for more information.

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