Everett C. Albers

At Dickinson State University, I learned tolerance for ideas and values completely foreign to my experience. When I went there, I thought I knew all that mattered. When I left, I realized that I had only begun to appreciate what I did not know about fulfilling human potential.”
-- Everett C. Albers, October 10, 2003

From these words, the Everett C. Albers Humanities Institute takes its

Purpose

• To inspire excellence in teaching in the humanities.
• To engage students, scholars, and the public in a conversation on humanities issues and topics.
• To exchange new ideas, information, and research.
• To create and disseminate humanities publications.
• To enrich the intellectual and cultural life of the community.

Everett C. Albers Humanities Institute
Advisory Committee

• Dr. Carl Larson, Director of Everett C. Albers Humanities Institute and DSU Professor Emeritus of English
• Mr. Clay Jenkinson, Associate Director of Everett C. Albers Humanities Institute and Theodore Roosevelt Scholar-in Residence
• Dr. Rich Brauhn, Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Professor of History
• Dr. David Meier, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences
• Ms. Lillian Crook, Director of Library Services

Ongoing Programs

• Everett C. Albers ‘66 Scholarship in the Humanities
• Speakers Series
• Publications
• Colloquia
• Teacher Institutes
• Everett C. Albers Personal Papers in Special Collections, Stoxen Library
• Host for North Dakota Humanities Council’s Larry Remele Memorial Fellows Lectures

Dr. Carl Larson

 
Dr. Carl Larson Named Director of Albers Institute

Dr. Carl Larson, DSU professor emeritus of English, will become the director of the Everett C. Albers Humanities Institute on July 1, 2007. Clay Jenkinson, DSU Theodore Roosevelt scholar in residence, will assist Larson as the associate director.

Larson’s duties as director include maintaining the Institute office in Stickney Hall, serving as the main contact for Albers Institute activities and assisting in planning the Everett C. Albers Humanities Festival.

History

Born in Oliver County--the heart of North Dakota--Everett C. Albers, a 1966 graduate of Dickinson State University, served as executive director of the North Dakota Humanities Council, the state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, from its beginning until his death in April 2004.

He was an outstanding student and editor of the campus newspaper, The Western Concept, at Dickinson State University. After graduation he completed his master of arts degree at Northern Colorado University and became a humanities professor at Dickinson State University from 1969-1973, where he created an integrated core humanities curriculum and became, by all accounts, a master teacher of the humanities.

In 1973, he began his work with the North Dakota Humanities Council--then the North Dakota Committee for the Humanities and Public Issues--located in Stickney Hall from 1973 until the office moved to Bismarck in 1977. Among other things, Albers invented the modern humanities tent Chautauqua movement and edited a number of books about North Dakota. He was also one of the first humanities council executives in the United States to make use of a gift-and-match funding formula that greatly increased the ability of small-population states to make significant contributions to public humanities discourse.

He served as the midwife for a complicated documentary film project on agrarian radicalism in North Dakota that eventually led to the creation of the docudrama, “Northern Lights,” which was arguably the most significant work of art produced under the aegis of the North Dakota Humanities Council. It went on to win the Golden Camera award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Everett’s energy and creativity were boundless. He taught himself skills in graphic arts, desktop publishing, tabloid publication, and website development. He had one of the smallest staffs of any humanities council in the nation. He developed award-winning exhibits and caused the Bill of Rights to be printed on grocery store bags.