MSU Receives Library of Congress Grant
The Library of Congress has awarded a $100,000 grant to Montana State University for National History Day in Montana.
This Teaching with Primary Sources grant will be used by former K-12 teachers Hailey Hancock, PhD, and Melissa Hibbard, PhD, to grow participation in Montana’s National History Day program, especially in small, rural schools.
They will use it to equip educators to teach historical analysis and argumentation, as well as to boost teachers’ confidence and competence with Indian Education for All instruction.
Montana State University and National History Day in Montana are one of 23 first-time Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources and 19 continuing grantee organizations located in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The current grant awarded in September provides one year of funding, with the possibility of two additional oneyear grants, contingent upon successful delivery of TPS educational projects based on Library of Congress digitized materials. Hibbard currently is an interpretive historian at the Montana Historical Society, and Hancock is an assistant teaching professor at Montana State University.
The duo relaunched Montana’s National History Day program in 2023. Recognizing the Library’s extensive offerings of IEFA-aligned Primary Source Sets, Hancock and Hibbard chose Indian Education for All – a legal requirement in Montana – as an avenue to develop these skills.
National History Day is a co-curricular academic program for students grades 6-12 and a world leader in history and civics education. NHD reaches more than half a million students and tens of thousands of teachers each year via its international student history contest and its wide range of teacher professional development programs, curriculum tools, and other educational activities.
“I’ve attended and taught in five of Montana’s small schools,” Hibbard said. “I feel a mixed sense of loss and envy that History Day wasn’t available to me as child, nor was it available to my students when I moved back to during the pandemic. Hailey and I want to change that for Montana’s teachers and students. This Library of Congress grant helps make that dream possible.”
For details about the MSU National History Day in Montana, visit www.nationalhistorydaymt. org.
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