Georgia Highlands College is one of three recipients in Georgia to receive a $3,000 programming grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association. Georgia Regents University and the University of Georgia also received grants.
The grant’s purpose is to promote and develop a nationwide public programming initiative for Latino Americans: 500 Years of History!, which according to its website (ala.org/latinoamericans) “supports the exploration of the rich and varied history and experiences of Latinos, who have helped shape the United States over the last five centuries and who have become, with more than 50 million people, the country's largest minority group.”
GHC Reference and Instruction Librarian Maggie Murphy explained that more than 200 libraries, museums, state humanities councils, historical societies and other nonprofits across the country were selected to receive grants.
“I worked with Amy Burger, an assistant librarian for public services at the GHC Cartersville campus, to write the grant application, which required a considerable amount of research and networking with local scholars and representatives of Latino communities in Northwest Georgia,” Murphy said.
Murphy stated that the Georgia Highlands College Libraries will use the “Latino Americans” grant award to hold four public programs between July 2015 and June 2016, one at the Rome campus, two at the Cartersville campus, and one at the Marietta site. Key themes from the Latino Americans series that Georgia Highlands College intends to explore in these programs include immigration, education and the expression of identity in Latino culture. 
Two events will be scholar-led screenings with follow-up discussions of episodes of PBS’s Latino Americans documentary series, one led by GHC President Don Green at the Floyd campus library in Fall 2015 and one led by GHC Associate Professor Steven Blankenship at the Cartersville campus library in Spring 2016. Another Fall 2015 event will center around mariachi, a popular form of Mexican folk music, and include a lecture by Kayleen Justus of Kennesaw State University and a performance from a local mariachi band.
The final event of the series will be held at the Marietta site and will feature a panel discussion hosted by Abraham Ortiz, the coordinator of student activities at the Marietta campus and advisor for Georgia Highlands College student organization La Mano, on Latino American identities with five members of the local Latino community. The Latin American Association in Atlanta is serving as a community partner on this project.
“It is important for us to receive this grant because the programming it will allow us to hold complements our institution’s focus on extending educational opportunities to our underserved Latino communities by providing us a forum to host events that will promote cross-cultural understanding and give us the opportunity to further learn from the people we seek to serve,” Murphy said.  Latino Americans: 500 Years of History, a public programming initiative produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA), is part of an NEH initiative, The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square.