Bridging Historias

September 9, 2016

Reading Area Community College in Pennsylvania, in partnership with ASHP/CML, was a awarded a two-year National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) professional and curricular development grant focusing on Latino history and culture. Conexiones: Linking Berks County Latino Communities to a Larger World, aims to build faculty participants’ competency in Latino history and culture, and help them develop Latino-based humanities content for Reading Area Community College’s (RACC) general education and other courses. ASHP will conduct four seminars featuring noted scholars and archive and museum professionals. In addition, teaching workshops featuring active learning pedagogies will focus on advancing student learning with primary source documents (text, visual art, audio, film), and help faculty create new and updated teaching modules.

Conexiones builds upon efforts begun by RACC faculty during ASHP’s 2013-2015 NEH-funded Bridging Historias program, which introduced thirty-six community college faculty to Latino histories and cultures and provided curriculum design support. RACC faculty participants designed three program courses: “Latino Literature and Writing,” “Latino Community Scholars,” and “Spanish for Heritage Speakers.” Conexiones will focus on the three most dominant Latino groups in the Reading area: Dominicans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. The first college to be federally designated as an Hispanic-serving institution (in 2015), RACC will collaborate with local cultural, historical, and social service organizations to strengthen ties between campus and community-based activities. By the end of fall 2018, RACC will have a collection of digitial teaching resources, a Latino Studies Associates of Arts program, and a dedicated network of educators and community leaders promoting Latino scholarship in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Bridging Historias: Latino/a History and Culture in the Community College Classroom will culminate its two-year National Endowment for the Humanities-funded program with a one-day conference featuring top scholars and innovative pedagogy. This event, sponsored by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, comes at an opportune moment when much-needed attention is being given to the importance of community colleges and to the Latino community. In addition to a keynote address by Vicki Ruiz (Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine) on relevant recent scholarship, conference presenters will address institutional policies and pedagogical approaches that support Latino Studies curricula. We hope you can attend and join in this important conversation!

For the full program and registration see below or go to: Bridging Historias. Register today and arrive early.

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Bridging Historias: Latino/a History and Culture in the Community College Classroom
Friday, May 8, 2015 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
Elebash Recital Hall, The Graduate Center, CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue, NYC

Since fall 2013, ASHP-CML has been working with thirty-eight community college faculty and administrators to assist them in incorporating material on Latino history and culture into their community college curricula. This project has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Join us for an exciting culminating full-day conference, in which we will hear from top scholars in the field, further our learning, and share classroom approaches and activities on this important topic. The keynote speaker will be Vicki Ruiz, Dean, School of Humanities, University of California, Irvine. Faculty participants will offer panels, roundtable discussions, workshops, and poster sessions. Bring your lessons, your curiosity, your creativity and join in this conversation.
Click here for full program and registration.

The National Endowment for the Humanities as part of its Bridging Cultures at Community Colleges initiative has awarded a $359,659 cooperative contract to the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning in partnership with Queensborough Community College for Bridging Historias through Latino History and Culture, a professional development program for community college faculty.

The goal of Bridging Historias is to develop curricular materials that will deepen and expand the teaching and understanding of Latino history and culture across the humanities disciplines. The program will run from Fall 2013 through Spring 2015 and involves faculty members and administrators from 36 community colleges in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.

The project’s activities include a seminar series run by Professor María Montoya (NYU) and Professor Lisandro Pérez (John Jay College, CUNY), online reading discussions, curricular development mentoring, and a program aimed at academic administrators. A culminating conference will feature the award-winning Latino studies scholar Vicki Ruiz, dean of the School of Humanities, University of California–Irvine.

ASHP/CML staff members Pennee Bender, Donna Thompson Ray, and Andrea Ades Vásquez will work with QCC Associate Dean Michelle Cuomo, who will lead the administrators’ program, and QCC history professor Megan Elias, who will guide the faculty mentors. Also among the project personnel are sixteen U.S. humanities and Latino studies scholars.

The application for community college faculty and administrators is available online now. The submission deadline is April 30, 2013, but we would appreciate the cover sheet indicating intent to apply by March 19, 2013.