CANTON -- Three new projects proposed by members of the St. Lawrence University faculty have been awarded large-scale grants through “Crossing Boundaries: Re-envisioning Humanities for the 21st Century,” a five-year project supported by a $700,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The funded projects are “Strengthening the Weave for the Next Generation,” “A Digital Oral History of Climate Change Activism,” and “Picturing the Civil Rights Movement.”

John Collins, professor of global studies; Stephen Barnard, assistant professor of sociology; and Jana Morgan, national director of “Publish What You Pay USA,” will serve as the project leaders for “Strengthening the Weave for the Next Generation.”

The team plans to use the grant to improve the Weave (www.weavenews.org), an independent news source that promotes “citizen journalism,” by developing a pilot program of alumni-student apprenticeships, establishing a Weave Faculty Fellows program to help St. Lawrence University faculty members integrate investigative blogging for the Weave into their courses, and improving the Weave’s organizational and editorial structure in preparation for the ten-year anniversary in 2017.

Jessica Prody, assistant professor of performance and communication arts, and Daniel McLane, assistant professor of sociology, will serve as the project leaders for “A Digital Oral History of Climate Change Activism.”

They plan to use the grant to provide training in oral history practices and develop a digital archive of oral history interviews conducted by St. Lawrence University students with local and global activists in the climate change movement.

Mary Jane Smith, associate professor of history, will serve as the project leader for “Picturing the Civil Rights Movement.”

She plans to use the grant to develop courses on African American studies and the civil rights movement to include modules based on visual, aural, and digital sources.

Smith is working closely with Catherine Tedford, director of St. Lawrence University’s Richard F. Brush Arts Gallery, and Carole Mathey, assistant director of the gallery, to incorporate a collection of 172 Associated Press photos of lesser-known events in the civil rights movement, recently acquired by the Brush Art Gallery, into her digital project.

A related gallery exhibition featuring student presentations on research is planned for 2017.

“The projects selected this semester represent a broad range of disciplines, but they all share a common commitment to innovative and interdisciplinary collaboration in the humanities,” said Leila Walker, assistant director of the Crossing Boundaries Mellon Humanities Grant.

“We are excited to support projects that forge connections across our academic, regional, and global communities.”

In addition to providing financial and technical support, the Crossing Boundaries staff work with faculty to develop project goals and pedagogical strategies over the course of the grant.

In 2012, St. Lawrence University was awarded a $700,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation for the five-year project, “Crossing Boundaries: Re-envisioning Humanities for the 21st Century.”

In addition to the limited number of large-scale grants exceeding $2,000 that are awarded once a semester, Crossing Boundaries also funds small-scale projects up to $2,000 on a rolling basis.

Both categories of grants can help defray costs associated with digitization including books, materials, software, collaborative project travel (but not student travel), speaker fees, and student researchers or project assistants.

For more information about the grant, visit www.stlawu.edu/mellon-humanities-grant.