Political science professor Peter Myers’ teaching will soon come from a source closer to home.

“Ninety percent of what I teach students I get from other books,” he said. “Somebody’s got to write them.”

Next fall, Myers will go from disseminator of knowledge to producer. The National Endowment for the Humanities announced Thursday it will award Myers a $24,000 fellowship.

The fellowship will allow him to take time off during the Fall 2005 semester to work full time on a research project entitled, “Frederick Douglass and the Rebirth of American Liberalism.” Pending approval, it will be published as a book with the University Press of Kansas.

“When you write something long, what you need is long, sustained periods of thinking,” Myers said. “It’s hard to write when you’re teaching a full load.”

The NEH is a federal agency that provides funding for cultural resources, education, research and public programs in humanistic fields such as language, literature, history, political science, philosophy and religion. This year, it awarded $7.4 million to 195 scholars across the United States for individual research. Five recipients are faculty at Wisconsin universities.

A fellowship through the NEH is a mark of distinction, said Chris Lind, assistant vice chancellor for research in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

“It’s quite an honor for him,” Lind said. “We don’t commonly get a lot of those at UW-Eau Claire. The competition is always very keen.”

He estimated an Eau Claire professor is awarded an NEH fellowship once every three or four years. In addition to advancing the university’s reputation, he said, a professor’s opportunity to research through an NEH fellowship also benefits students.

“He’ll bring that back to his classroom, and it will affect his teaching,” he said.

Myers agreed. He said his research on the Civil War, slavery and race relations for the project will enrich his political philosophy courses, such as “American Political Thought” and “The Idea of Tolerance in Western Political Tradition.”

“I love the Civil War period,” Myers said. “It raises the question of natural rights in really fundamental ways.”

At first, he considered researching and writing on the virtue of tolerance, he said.

Realizing the topic was too broad to be addressed with the time and resources available, he narrowed it to racial equality and tolerance.

That led to the project on Frederick Douglass, whom he calls “the single greatest advocate for civil rights after the Civil War” and “one of the greatest speakers of the 19th century.”

Before Myers applied, people warned him the program was biased against less prestigious universities such as Eau Claire. However, he has found the program to be open to sponsoring research at schools outside the Ivy League, he said.

Myers said the university’s support of faculty in programs such as the NEH is important to its overall success.

“If the university is good about funding research … that’s helpful in attracting professors here.”