Articles
With new funding from the Texas Legislature, Humanities Texas is developing a significant expansion of our teacher enrichment program to reach new teachers in low-performing schools.
On January 14th and 15th, our staff met in Austin with representatives from leading Texas universities and the National Archives, as well as several outstanding classroom teachers, to discuss ways of amplifying the program while maintaining its rigor and quality.
Attendees were: Albert S. Broussard, Humanities Texas board member and professor of history at Texas A&M University; Keith Erekson, assistant professor of history and director of the Center for History Teaching and Learning at The University of Texas at El Paso; Jim Furgeson, teacher at McCallum High School in Austin and 2009 Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award recipient; Monica Perales, Humanities Texas board member and assistant professor of history at the University of Houston; Richard Hunt, director of the Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Julie Hardwick, professor of history and director of the Institute for Historical Studies at The University of Texas at Austin; Larry D. Carver, Humanities Texas board member and Doyle Professor in Western Civilization and director of the Liberal Arts Honors Program at UT Austin; Alan Tully, Eugene C. Barker Centennial Professor in American History and history department chair at UT Austin; Michael L. Gillette, Humanities Texas executive director; James C. Schneider, associate professor of history and history department chair at The University of Texas at San Antonio; Shelley Sallee, history department chair at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin; Eric Lupfer, director of grants and education at Humanities Texas; Thomas R. Mitchell, former Humanities Texas board member and professor of English and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M International University in Laredo; and Charles Flanagan, director of educational programs at NARA's Center for Legislative Archives. Not pictured: Signe Peterson, eighth-grade history teacher at South Houston Intermediate School and 2009 Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities Award recipient; and George Forgie, Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor and associate chair of the UT Austin history department.
The expanded institute program, which will focus on the middle school humanities curriculum, will offer Texas teachers the opportunity to work closely with leading humanities scholars and experienced mentor teachers. With the support of its university partners, Humanities Texas will sponsor multiple residential institutes around the state in the summer of 2010, with a series of one-day follow-up seminars during the 2010–2011 school year.