Misericordia Art Gallery Director to Participate in NEH Summer Institute

Misericordia Art Gallery Director to Participate in NEH Summer Institute

Lalaine Bangilan Little, Ph.D., Pauly Friedman Art Gallery director and adjunct professor of Fine Arts, has been selected for a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for Higher Education Faculty.

Little will spend a week on the campuses of Coastline College, Newport Beach, CA, attending “Fifty Years Later: The Vietnam War Through the Eyes of Veterans, Vietnamese, and Southeast Asian Refugees.” This program will build connections with higher education professionals across America, in Vietnam, Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees in Little Saigon and nationwide, veterans, active military students, and scholars interested in furthering their knowledge about humanities and war experience in Vietnam. Little holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Binghamton University and specializes in artistic exchanges between Asia and Europe. Little’s courses include “Introduction to Global Architecture” and “Arts of Asia Pacific.”

Little has a deep connection to these topics as she explains, “As an Asian-American adult who now teaches young adults about the artistic legacy of that conflict, I do feel solidarity with first- and second-generation immigrants. Whether descendants of those forcibly displaced by conflict or seeking a way out of economic colonialism, our communities must find ways to support each other.” She can discuss these topics with her students through art because of the roots that Misericorida’s mission is founded on. “It falls within our mission to further a humanistic approach to the study of military conflict, especially when we are still reconciling with our nation’s treatment of veterans and refugees,” says Little.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. NEH Summer Institutes are tuition-free opportunities to study a variety of humanities topics. Participants are selected from a national applicant pool of full- or part-time faculty and receive a stipend to cover expenses.

Dr. Lalaine Bangilan Little can be contacted at llittle@misericordia.edu. For more information about The Pauly Friedman Art Gallery at Misericordia University, click here.