The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded Kent State a $300,000 grant to put toward a May 4 Visitors Center.

The May 4 Visitors Center will act as a permanent, museum-style exhibit geared toward helping visitors to better understand the historical context of May 4.

“The May 4 Visitors Center will serve as an educational resource to future generations when those who witnessed the tragedy are no longer around to tell the story,” said Carole Barbato, a communication studies professor at Kent’s East Liverpool campus and May 4 alumnus, in a press release. “We have a responsibility as a university to preserve the past, and tell accurately, the story of the shootings within the context of the 1960s so future generations can understand better what happened here.

The center will be located in Taylor Hall, adjacent to the May 4 Memorial on the Kent campus. The university anticipates the exhibit will open in 2012.

The university is working with museum design firm Gallagher & Associates of Silver Springs, Md., to complete content development and design for the permanent exhibit. Gallagher’s projects include the new Gettysburg visitor center, the new museum at Woodstock and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland.

– SKS staff