Roosevelt University holds High School Teachers Academy on History and Principles of American Founding

Roosevelt University will conduct its first Summer Academy for High School Teachers, July 12-16.  The Summer Academy, a collaborative effort by Roosevelt University’s Montesquieu Forum for the Study of Civic Life and the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History, is designed to foster a discussion among high school teachers about the history and principles of the American Founding.
 
The program is a one-week series of lectures, workshops and seminars for Chicagoland high school teachers. It is modeled after the successful faculty development summer institutes for college professors that the Jack Miller Center conducts in association with leading universities and colleges. The Summer Teachers’ Academy on the American Founding is a program of the Jack Miller Center’s Chicago Initiative, a collaborative effort among university faculty, foundation experts, and private donors in the greater Chicago area to advance the education students need to be become engaged and thoughtful citizens.

The curriculum of the Teachers’ Academy is based on original texts and documents central to the formation of the United States and its institutions. The theme is Liberty & Constitutionalism: Five Founding Freedoms.  More specifically, the conversation will focus on “The Conditions of Freedom,” “Freedom of Speech,” “Liberty, Property, & the Pursuit of Happiness,” “Freedom from Fear,” and “Freedom of Conscience.”  Each session will be guided by a nationally recognized scholar on the American Founding:  Ralph Lerner (University of Chicago); Peter Onuf (University of Virginia); Michael Zuckert (University of Notre Dame); Jessica Choppin Roney (Ohio University); and Mary Jane Farrelly (Brandeis University).

“Twenty-one high school teachers from a variety of Chicago and suburban high schools (including Jones College Prep, Grayslake Central,  Niles North, Hinsdale, Riverside-Brookfield, Marian Catholic and Curie) will spend a ‘summer school’ week focused on the history of the  founding of the United States,” said Lynn Weiner, dean of Roosevelt’s College of Arts and Sciences.  “As a result, the education of hundreds of area high school students will be enriched and broadened this fall.”