The National Endowment for the Humanities announced Monday it is giving UC Davis $379,000 in seed money and the opportunity to create one of 10 regional humanities centers.

"It's great news," said Jay Mechling, professor of American studies and center project director. "UC Davis is going to have a high-visibility, high-impact center for the humanities for the study of the Pacific United States."

Dedicated to the cultures in the region, the new Pacific Regional Humanities Center will have many institutional partners in the five Pacific states and three territories, Mechling said. The goal is to give the public an ownership of the humanities outside of an academic setting.

Proposals include education for public school teachers and students, radio and television documentaries, graduate student outreach to book clubs and historical societies, public programs at community centers, traveling art exhibitions, and Web sites.

The center will also help sponsor student and faculty research on the region's cultures. The region includes California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas Islands.

Each of the 10 centers will receive up to $379,000 from the national endowment over the next three years to be matched with another $1.13 million in other funding, such as other grants and private gifts.

Originally, each center was to receive from the National Endowment for the Humanities $5 million over five years to be matched with another $15 million. The change in presidential administrations and shift in priorities resulted in the grant reduction, Mechling said.

"We have the blueprint for a $20 million center with lots of ideas," Mechling said. "We will have to build more slowly, figuring out where to start and where the money is coming from. But we also have many talented people working to solve those issues."

The grant represents a sea change in perspective for the humanities at UC Davis, said Elizabeth Langland, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies.

"It's been an empowering process for the faculty members to see they can compete for and win substantial grants," Langland said. "They were awarded one of the largest grants ever for the humanities at UC Davis. I am proud of their significant accomplishment."

Both Langland and Mechling say the plan, developed with a $50,000 planning grant from the national endowment, has enlarged the vision for the UC Davis humanities' land-grant responsibilities.

"One of the reasons we won the competition is that we take very seriously the land-grant mission of bringing university research to the public," Mechling said. "This center will be a catalyst for doing that in the humanities."

The bulk of the center work will be in providing coordination and other kinds of services between UC Davis partners who will create public humanities programs, he added.

Those partners include the eight state and territorial humanities councils; the many academic humanities institutes and departments within the University of California and at California State University, Stanford University, the University of Washington and other universities; museums -- ranging in size and focus from the Yakama Nation Museum in Toppenish, Wash., to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; historical societies; school districts; and Native American tribal councils.

Mechling also hopes to collaborate with UC Davis' competitor for the grant, San Francisco State University, to take advantage of its many strengths in the humanities for the region.