SU’s School of Education to host U.S. Holocaust Museum Regional Summit

SU’s School of Education to host U.S. Holocaust Museum Regional Summit October 02, 2008Patrick Farrellpmfarrel@syr.edu

Syracuse University’s School of Education and the Spector/Warren Fellowship for Future Teachers, in cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, will host this year’s Northeast Regional Education Summit on the SU campus. Summit participants will include educators from nine states and the District of Columbia, representing a wide range of experiences in teaching about the Holocaust. The invitation-only event will take place at Syracuse University’s E.S. Bird Library and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs on Oct. 29-31.

The goal of the summit is to support partnerships among Holocaust organizations, professors in colleges and universities, representatives from state departments of education, and secondary-level teachers to more effectively meet the challenges of teaching about the Holocaust. The summit will feature a series of conversations among participants and will include presentations by museum historians about modern anti-Semitism, the ethical dilemmas faced by teachers in the Third Reich and strategies to respond to instances of modern genocide.

The Regional Education Summit is made possible by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany Inc. The Syracuse event is part of a continuing series of regional summits, sponsored by the Washington, D.C.-based Holocaust Memorial Museum to enhance dialogue and cooperation among groups involved in Holocaust education.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum promotes the responsible teaching of the Holocaust by providing training and support materials to educators. The museum’s Teacher Fellowship Program has developed a nationwide corps of Holocaust educators. The Spector/Warren Fellowship for Future Teachers provides SU students preparing to be teachers with the historical background and pedagogical skills to teach about the Holocaust and genocide.

Other museum programs include the annual Belfer National Conference, an intensive three-day, entry-level program for Holocaust educators. The museum’s website, http://www.ushmm.org, provides resources at no cost to educators, including conference applications, an online training module, primary sources and exemplary lesson plans.

For information about the Northeast Regional Education Summit, contact Alan Goldberg (agoldbe1@twcny.rr.com) or the School of Education’s Center for Continuing Education and Global Outreach (CEGO) at (315) 443-4696. To learn more about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, visit http://www.ushmm.org or contact Andy Hollinger, museum director of media relations, at (202) 488-6133 (ahollinger@ushmm.org).