National Endowment for the Humanities
Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for Schoolteachers

Drs. Caroline Pryor and Susan Breck are co-directors of a Landmarks of American History and Culture grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities. The two, one week workshops will be held on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville on June 22-27 and July 20-25.The award will provide K-12 teachers across the nation the opportunity to attend a one-week workshop to be held twice during the 2008 summer session at SIUE. The program announcement is available on the NEH web-site (http://neh.gov/news/archive/20070808.html) and on the university site (www.siue.edu/education/neh) along with workshop application forms and stipend information.

The workshop begins on the SIUE campus. Lincoln scholars, Dr. Stephen L. Hansen and Dr. John Y. Simon (SIUC) will provide teachers with an opportunity to engage in rich scholarly discussion. Following these discussions, teachers will visit nearby historic sites associated with Abraham Lincoln in and around Springfield, Illinois.

Upon return to the SIUE campus, professors will provide additional lectures and discussion with teachers as they expand their learning using campus technological resources. Dr. Leslie Brown, Washington University, will discuss stories collected by African-American women during the Civil War era. Dr. Laura Milsk-Fowler, SIUE historian and museum studies expert, will provide teachers with knowledge about using museum collections for research. Amy Wilkinson, director of the Adventures of the American Mind Project at SIUE, aided by technologist Binod Pokhrel, will help teachers learn how to use the digitized collection of the Library of Congress. Drs. Pryor and Breck, professors in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction will help teachers develop lesson plans for their classrooms. The workshop provides a unique collaboration in which teachers from across the nation are immersed in the study of influences contributing to forging both this American President and the modern era that followed.

Teachers selected to participate will receive a stipend of $500 at the end of the residential workshop. Stipends are intended to help cover ordinary living expenses, books, and travel expenses to and from the workshop location. Travel supplements will be available, but will be allocated on a case-by-case basis after the workshop session is over. Stipends and travel supplements are taxable.