Three Academy faculty members will spend part of the summer attending programs offered to teachers through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
George Ovitt (history department), will participate in the Summer Institute, “Roots of the Arab Spring.” The three-week institute, held on the campus of the University of California Davis, will bring together teachers and scholars to investigate the historical, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of the Arab Spring, the revolutionary wave of protests and uprisings sweeping through the Arab world since 2010.
Margaret McGuinn (English department), will attend the 2013 Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop. These workshops provide an opportunity for teachers to make connections between the best scholarship about historical sites and classroom teaching. Margaret’s workshop, “Crafting Freedom: Black Artisans, Entrepreneurs, and Abolitionists in the Antebellum Upper South,” will take place in Chapel Hill, NC.
Stuart Lipkowitz (English department), will participate in the “Gullah Voices: Traditions and Transformations” workshop in Savannah, Georgia. Stuart will be studying the history and rich artistic heritage of the Gullah people, descendents from rice plantation slaves, who have preserved many common elements of their home culture in Sierra Leone, in music, dance, and oral traditions.
The NEH Division of Education Programs works to strengthen humanities education through intensive summer programs of reading and discussion with recognized scholars. Teachers have opportunities to strengthen their mastery of the subjects they teach in history, philosophy, literature and languages, world cultures, art history, and political science, among others. These residential programs encourage schoolteachers and college teachers to study common texts, visit collections in libraries and museums, exchange ideas about the art of teaching, and share insights and materials with their colleagues and students.
