The University will receive a $105,090 grant providing funding for a television program aimed at helping high school educators teach the constitution.

Last month the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution announced the University will be one of 28 colleges and organizations receiving federal funding in order to develop better programming for teaching the Constitution, said Chuck Timanus, deputy director of communications for the commission.

The University program will consist of 10 half-hour public television shows, a textbook and teacher's guide, said John Grant, program director and manager of WPSX.

The shows will be shot on several different locations in an effort to create programming that is entertaining as well as informative, said Harry Zimbler, associate director for instructional production.

The University's project may not be finished for two to three years, Grant said.

Work on the project cannot begin until the University receives the federal grant and finds extra funding to cover production costs, he added.

Others involved in the program include Francis Dawson, professor of history at the Fayette Campus, and Duncan McDonald, primary contact and creator of the project, said Grant.

Dawson said the program will be partially based on his experience teaching Western civilization using the Socratic method. This method asks people many questions forcing them to think, said Dawson. He said traditional high school programs "make history boring" for students.

An outside review board that advises the commission, selected the organizations to receive grants. Recipients of the grants were chosen from 137 applications on the basis of their proposal and the number of people they could reach, Timanus said.

Since 1987, the commission has awarded more than $7.6 million for projects around the country. Some of the other grants include diverse organizations such as the the South Carolina Bar Foundation, the Association for Retarded Citizens and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Chicago grant of $77,863 will fund a plan to explore the origins of and the influences on the Constitution through different periods of world history, Timanus said.

Timanus said studying the Constitution is important for people to understand their rights and duties as citizens.

"The American people do not understand the Constitution," he said.