News & Events
First Round Grant Recipients Announced
The Upshur Institute for Civic Education at Eastern Michigan University has awarded funding to faculty and lecturers for projects to prepare Eastern Michigan University students for the intellectual demands of democratic participation through critical inquiry and engagement in History and other Social Studies disciplines.
Established in September, UICE-EMU promotes innovative teaching and learning methods in History and social studies. The UICE investigates and tests new ways to apply and adapt approaches to history and social studies teacher training courses at EMU and helps foster a new generation of informed and engaged citizens and innovative educators at the high school and college levels to benefit students in Michigan and beyond. The Institute grounds itself in producing citizens with strong civic knowledge, skills, dispositions, and capacities.
The grant program aims to support projects that:
Projects could develop Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement through:
- Course development plans that encourage greater student engagement and offer the opportunity for transformative learning experiences;
- Collaborative and/or interdisciplinary work around democratic engagement;
- Research projects, including conducting experiments and/or demonstrations;
- Projects related to the scholarship of teaching and learning;
- Community engagement experiences (local or global);
- Team-based or problem-based learning;
- Large group debates;
- Peer teaching;
- Roleplaying or game-based learning;
- Place-based pedagogies;
- Faculty learning communities.
Selected proposals receive up to $4,500, which must be spent during the 2023/2024 Academic year.
Winners of the inaugural UICE Grant Awards are:
Mark Whitters (Lecturer): "Rethinking Civic Education in High Schools: A New Strategy, Part I."
Mary Elizabeth Murphy
Ashley Bavery
Mary Elizabeth Murphy, Ashley Bavery, Alexis Braun Marks (Faculty): "You Are Welcome Here: "EMU's Afghan Refugee Oral History Project."
Zuzana Tomas (Faculty): "Cultivating Teacher Candidates' Critical Global Citizenship through Innovative, Community-Engaged Study Abroad."
Grand Opening of the Upshur Institute for Civic Education (UICE)
The Department of History & Philosophy was delighted to host the Grand Opening of the Upshur Institute for Civic Education (UICE), which is a result of a major gift the Department received last year from History professor emerita Jiu-Hwa Upshur.
The UICE Grand Opening coincided with Michigan’s Constitution Week, taking place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, September 21 in the Student Center Ballroom. The Keynote Speaker was Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who was first elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. Secretary Benson spoke on the importance of civic education and Constitution Day, a federal observance. Watch a video of the Grand Opening and Secretary Benson's address here.
