The Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus and Eastern Michigan University (EMU) announced their Fourth Annual Summer Teacher Seminar to benefit current and prospective teachers and their students from Aug. 12-16.
The theme for this year’s seminar, which is supported by a generous grant from the Claims Conference and takes place at the Holocaust Memorial Center located at 28123 Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills, is “Witnesses to the Holocaust.” Using the latest academic scholarship and best instructional practices to make lessons about the Holocaust understandable and meaningful for students, the seminar is designed to build an instructor’s content base.
“Teachers in this country rarely have an opportunity to participate in Holocaust education. The quality of this program’s presenters, as well as the opportunity to speak with Holocaust survivors, makes this an extraordinarily powerful and compelling experience for educators,” said EMU Director of Jewish Studies MartinShichtman, Ph.D, who along with fellow EMU professor John Staunton and Holocaust Memorial Center Director of Programs Rebecca Swindler organizes the event. “We have even reached the point where we regularly register educators from overseas as attendees. This year, teachers from Germany and Estonia will be joining us.”
Attendees will hear presentations from scholars and survivors examining the Holocaust from the rise of Nazism to the Holocaust deniers of today. Presenters include:
Ramona Caponegro, Ph.D, Eastern Michigan University
Assistant Professor of Children’s Literature
Field of study focuses on concepts of justice and human rights as well as historical children’s literature and fiction
Robert Franciosi, Ph.D, Grand Valley State University
Professor of English and Honors
Editor of Elie Wiesel: Conversations
Martin B. Shichtman, Ph.D., Eastern Michigan University
Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature
Director of Jewish Studies
2006 fellow at Brandeis University’s Summer Institute for Israel Studies
2003 participant in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Seminar on Literature and the Holocaust
John Staunton, Ph.D., Eastern Michigan University
Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature
Lesson development and research focus
Jacqueline Vansant, Ph.D., University of Michigan-Dearborn
Professor of German
Research in post-World War II Austrian women writers and exile studies
Author of Reclaiming “Heimat”: Trauma and Mourning in Memoirs by Jewish Austrian Réemigrés
Ken Waltzer, Ph.D., Michigan State University
Professor of History
Director of Jewish Studies
Research focuses on children in the Buchenwald concentration camp and rescue and survival during the Holocaust
Jamie Wraight, Ph.D., University of Michigan-Dearborn
Curator of the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive
Professor of History
Members of the museum’s Holocaust survivor network also will present.
Participating teachers will be provided access to the vast primary resources from the museum library and archive to aid them in the development of their own classroom lessons. By the end of the weeklong seminar, they will develop a lesson plan to be shared with other participants.
To register for the seminar, please go to https://ep.emich.edu/holocaust. Cost for the event is $100 and includes nine SB-CEUs. Three undergraduate or graduate credit hours also are available to participants for an additional fee. All applications are due by Friday, Aug. 2.