Professional Development Programs
Professional development opportunities encourage educators to explore current issues in international studies through conferences, seminars, short courses and faculty presentations.
Week-long (30 contact hours) summer institutes challenge teachers to combine experience in applying critical thinking and problem-solving skills to international issues with the knowledge and materials needed to engage their students. To prepare our students for global citizenship in the 21st Century, the Institute for Global Studies, the Consortium for the Study of the Asias, and the European Studies Consortium are working to strengthen international studies in K-16 education. The Teacher Summer Institutes combine lectures by University of Minnesota faculty and guest speakers, small group discussions, course readings, and teaching resources to explore international issues and learn strategies for integrating global topics into existing curriculum. The Summer Institutes are funded by a Title VI grant from US Department of Education.
Contact
E-mail Molly McCoy at mccoy019@umn.edu with questions.
Summer Institutes 2009
Being Somali in the Diaspora: Explorations through the Somali Documentary Project for Educators
Instructors: Martha Bigelow, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota; Abdi Roble, Photographer, Somali Documentary Project; Doug Rutledge, Writer, Somali Documentary Project
This institute will be taught collaboratively with Abdi Roble, Doug Rutledge, creators of The Somali Documentary Project, and Martha Bigelow, from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The institute is intended to be for educators or students of any discipline who teach any age group who are interested in the broad areas of refugee studies, identity formation, Diaspora communities and education. By focusing on the photographs in the exhibit at the Weisman Art Museum, participants will develop new understandings and personal connections to the Somali community which translate into innovations in teaching practices, outreach to families, or school climate reforms. Educators will have the opportunity to experience and learn enduring strategies for integrating art across curriculum and through instruction.
Dates: June 22 – 26, 2009, 9:00 - 4:00 daily
Location: Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota – Minneapolis Campus
Registration: $75 includes 30 CEUs, readings, lunch daily, and excursions. Housing and travel funding available - email outreach@umn.edu for funding application.
Teaching Film in the Language Classroom
Instructor: Vlad Dima, Department of French and Italian, University of Minnesota
This workshop focuses on facilitating the inclusion of film and film activities in an everyday language class. It will provide you with background information on film studies, and help create activities to go along with select films. The main goal of the workshop is to simplify the process of including and teaching film (as opposed to teaching language only) for people with little experience in film studies.
The two-day workshop will include two film viewings, a Senegalese film, La Petite Vendeuse de Soleil, and a Spanish film Volver, and all teachers will receive copies of the films for classroom use. Though this workshop will target language teachers and pedagogies of language instruction, it is open to all teachers interested in learning how to incorporate film studies in their teaching. The course will be conducted in English and language teachers are encouraged to attend with a colleague from another language department at their school or district.
Dates: Thursday, August 6 – Friday, August 7, 2009
Location: University of Minnesota - Minneapolis Campus
Registration: $25 fee includes 12 CEUs, lunch daily, copies of films, and all readings.
Race, Ethnicity, and National Identity in Contemporary European Soccer and Society: The Status of Ethnic Minorities in the New Europe
Instructor: Carl-Gustaf Scott, Department of History, Hamline University
Soccer is the most widely watched and played team sport in Europe, and Western Europe is also home to the largest, wealthiest, and most prestigious soccer leagues in the world. The game’s appeal is virtually universal, transcending all existing socio-economic, religious, and racial barriers in contemporary European society, and this course employs soccer to examine the second-class status of the continent’s ethnic minorities. These minorities are principally composed of immigrants from Europe’s former colonies in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Most arrived during the economic boom years of the early postwar era, and have, as a rule, remained on the margins of European society ever since.
This class looks at how the sport acts to illuminate both long-standing ethnic and sectarian divisions within European society, as well as newer racially related grievances. The pervasiveness of such antipathies in today’s game, in turn, raises questions about what it exactly means to be “European”, and whether or not soccer ultimately can contribute to creating a more inclusive definition of citizenship. The course employs an interdisciplinary approach, relying on a combination of scholarly essays, films, and works of literature to explore these topics. Particular attention will be paid to the position of African and Caribbean players in British and French soccer.
Dates: June 29 - July 2, 2009, 9:00 – 4:00 Monday - Thursday
Location: West Bank, University of Minnesota Campus
Registration: $75 includes 30 CEUs, readings, lunch daily, and excursions. Housing and travel funding available - email outreach@umn.edu for funding application.
From Alexandria to Wikipedia: Media and Knowledge in the Modern World
Instructors: Thomas Wolfe and J.B. Shank, Department of History, University of Minnesota
How we know is always shaped by the media through which we acquire, store, and distribute knowledge. For this reason, the history of media offers a rich vantage point for studying the historical development of modern Western knowledge as whole. This week long summer institute will pursue this line of inquiry by studying the development of Western methods for ordering, inscribing, and communicating knowledge from the medieval period to the present. Our focus will be on the changing conception of the "encyclopedia," or universal compendium of knowledge, during this period. We will start with the scribal and oral encyclopedic practices of medieval scholars, and then look at the transformation wrought by moveable type and replicable images after 1500. We will also examine the new projects of universal Enlightenment that took hold after 1700 around the new culture of widespread book publication, circulation, and literacy. We will conclude by examining the rise of new media such as radio, film, television, and internet-based digital communication and the continuities and changes these new media present. Our sessions will take advantage of the University of Minnesota's James Ford Bell and Owen H. Wangensteen libraries of rare and historic books to study actual historical artifacts related to the history of media. Time will also be alloted during each session for participants to develop level-appropriate curriculum suitable for taking the insights of this institute into elementary and secondary school classrooms.
Dates: July 6 – 10, 2009, 9:00 – 4:00 Daily
Location: West Bank, University of Minnesota Campus
Registration: $75 includes 30 CEUs, readings, lunch daily, and excursions. Housing and travel funding available - email outreach@umn.edu for funding application.
Transitional Justice: Seeking Truth and Accountability for Systematic Human Rights Violations
Instructors: Barbara Frey, Director of the Human Rights Program, University of Minnesota
Countries emerging from eras of repression, armed conflict, or mass atrocities must find a way to address the past before they can make a successful transition into more open, democratic societies. What to do with the past is a dramatic decision for a society that has experienced grave violations to individuals and groups, and to the public’s trust in government. This week-long course will explore some of the methods and mechanisms that have been developed by national and international actors, including truth commissions, prosecutions and compensation, to assist societies to transition away from a repressive past. Case studies will include South Africa’ and Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, the Special Tribunal for Cambodia, community-based “gacaca” courts in Rwanda, ad hoc international tribunals on Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Iraqi Special Tribunal for Crimes against Humanity, and the International Criminal Court.
Dates: July 6 – 10, 2009, 9:00 – 4:00 Daily
Location: West Bank, University of Minnesota Campus
Registration: $75 includes 30 CEUs, readings, lunch daily, and excursions. Housing and travel funding available - email outreach@umn.edu for funding application.
Imperialism and Nationalism in Modern Asia
Instructor: G.S. Sahota, Department of Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Minnesota
This course will examine two determining and often contradictory historical forces that have shaped contemporary Asia: imperialism and nationalism. We will explore the logic of capitalist expansion and the various theories that have been ventured about the nature of this social form. In the case of countries such as China and Vietnam, the focus will be on the counter-logic of decolonization, internationalist communism, and anti-systemic currents such as the Cultural Revolution. In the case of the subcontinent, we will explore the developments in the late colonial period that led to Partition and the formation of India and Pakistan along largely religious lines. The implications of the role of the US in the region as a whole (but especially in Vietnam, Japan, and Taiwan) for our discussions will also be addressed. Films, documentaries, and writings by the likes of Natsume Soseki, Mao Tse Tung, Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Iqbal and others will ground the discussions and lectures. Scholars working on different regions, languages, and social or cultural phenomena will guest lecture over the course of the week.
Dates: August 10 - 14, 2009, 9:00 - 4:00 daily
Location: West Bank, University of Minnesota Campus
Registration: $75 includes 30 CEUs, readings, lunch daily, and excursions. Housing and travel funding available - email outreach@umn.edu for funding application.