National Humanities Center Names 2023-24 Teacher Advisory Council

Twenty Educators Selected to Advise on NHC Education Programs

DURHAM, N.C., June 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Humanities Center (NHC) has announced the selection of twenty talented educators from across the country as members of its 2023–24 Teacher Advisory Council. These teachers, from schools in twelve states, will work with the Center's staff in piloting, evaluating, and promoting NHC resources and professional development programs for collegiate and pre-collegiate educators.

The Teacher Advisory Council was formed by the National Humanities Center to aid in its ongoing effort to help teachers be more effective in humanities classrooms. "The Center's education resource collections, webinars, courses, and institutes support teachers from across the country," said NHC Director of Education Programs Mike Williams, "and our teacher advisors help ensure that our classroom tools and professional development experiences are pedagogically sound and relevant in a wide variety of classroom settings."

"We are particularly pleased to have council members from an array of learning environments as part of the group," said Williams. "This year's council includes educators who work with a wide spectrum of students in public and private institutions of all sizes."

The newly named council members are:

• Anna Anderson, North Central Texas College (Corinth, TX)
• Gretchyn Bedard, Crossroads Arts & Science Early College (Statesville, NC)
• Changa Bey, Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School (St. Louis, MO)
• Sam Bradford, The Walker School (Marietta, GA)
• Erik Byker, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Charlotte, NC)
• LaShonda Carter, Riverside City College (Riverside, CA)
• Melissa Cohen, Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School (Bronx, NY)
• Julianne Farkas, Miami Palmetto Senior High School (Pinecrest, FL)
• Jessica Friday, Saucon Valley High School (Hellertown, PA)
• Rachelle Friedman, Lycée Français de New York (New York, NY)
• Kurt Hargis, Destrehan High School (Destrehan, LA)
• Theresa Higgins, The University of North Carolina School of the Arts High School Program (Winston Salem, NC)
• Rick Holifield, Providence High School (Burbank, CA)
• Deborah Holland, D'Evelyn Junior/Senior High School (Denver, CO)
• Merry Lanker, Stephen Decatur Middle School (Decatur, IL)
• Keneshia Leveridge-James, Brightwood Elementary School (Greensboro, NC)
• Vincent Pham, International High School at Prospect Heights (Brooklyn, NY)
• Manoj Thadhani, Syosset Senior High School (Syosset, NY)
• Juan Walker, Augusta University (Augusta, GA)
• Sara Wiseman, Liberty High School (Frisco, TX)

Members of the Teacher Advisory Council will evaluate current online offerings, pilot new materials with their students, and assist the Center's education team in raising awareness of NHC resources and platforms with other educators.

For forty years the National Humanities Center has included teacher professional development as a key part of its mission. In recent years, the Center's education resources have expanded exponentially, allowing teachers from across the United States to participate in live webinars with leading scholars, freely download thousands of primary source materials ready-made for classroom use, and access digital lessons and other tools that are ideally suited to teaching in twenty-first-century classrooms.

About the National Humanities Center's Education Programs

The National Humanities Center is an independent institute for advanced study dedicated to advancing significant humanistic study and reflection and to making those insights available both inside and outside the academic world. Through its Education Programs, the Center seeks to strengthen teaching on the collegiate and pre-collegiate levels. Model programs developed at the Center provide teachers and faculty with new materials and instructional strategies to make them more effective in the classroom and rekindle their enthusiasm for the subjects they teach.

Media Contact: Don Solomon, [email protected], 919-406-0120

SOURCE National Humanities Center