Implementing The La Pietra Report: Globalizing U. S. History Instruction in Birmingham, Alabama
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To many it was clear that the history curriculum at Miles required a major overhaul, both to modernize existing course content and to meet the instruction expectations of students. Equipped with the necessary funding to address these issues and the administrative support of the college, we decided to not only correct past deficiencies, but to also develop a new curriculum that fulfills the needs and captures the interests of Miles students while distinguishing the program from those of other local and regional educational institutions. For these reasons, two questions stood out above all others as we began the planning phase of the project: How should we allocate our resources? What model should we use to best meet our goals? Fortunately, at the time that these issues were being contemplated at Miles, the Organization of American Historians published the La Pietra Report, Internationalizing the Study of American History. The stated goal of the scholars who compiled the La Pietra Report became the guiding principle by which we proceeded to develop the curriculum for the new history major. Certain faculty members at Miles had long championed the need to deviate from traditional patterns of Eurocentric, Afrocentric, and national bounded courses and instruction, key points advocated in the report. Like those involved in the OAH project, we placed primary emphasis on incorporating instructional models based on transnational, multicultural, and comparative themes. While not totally abandoning national and geographically defined topics, new courses designed according to the La Pietra model placed a special focus on subjects that transcended political boundaries. Specifically, United States history, in both surveys and specialty courses, will now be taught according to an Atlantic World, Pacific Rim, or Americas perspective in hopes of introducing our students to a wider, more encompassing, understanding of their communities, both past and present. The African American history course, for example, which is a popular mainstay at Miles, will incorporate themes of the Atlantic World as well as the African Diaspora. To a limited extent, we have also found ways to incorporate global themes in the Alabama history class. As a result, the still evolving curriculum of the new major represents a marked departure from past models utilized at Miles College, as well as from current paradigms employed at neighboring institutions. Existing surveys on U.S., African, and world history have been redesigned to present the regions and their peoples as integral participants in global events, movements, and trends, rather than as insulated entities isolated from external factors. In addition to requiring students to enroll in the same number of Western and Non-Western subject courses, all majors must also participate in a series of lectures, seminars, and symposia dealing with comparative history topics. Sample courses to be introduced to this curriculum include, "Colonization in the Americas," "Race in an Atlantic Context" and "Industrialization in the Pacific Rim." Moreover, history faculty will conduct upper division seminars and encourage senior theses that deal with global topics and involve a considerable degree of group and individual research in sources that necessitate interpretative thought, or at least consideration of an international perspective. Our ability to devise and implement such a curriculum stems in large part from the funding and resources we have obtained. The NEH grant that we received to initiate the history major also enabled us to purchase hundreds of new monographs and journals for our campus library, many of which promote new comparative and/or global interpretations of U.S. and world history. For the upcoming year, we have applied to NEH for supplementary funding to purchase additional materials with similar applications in order to provide greater research avenues for our history majors. In this second acquisition phase, we plan to expand our holdings to include substantial microfilm collections containing newspapers and other primary documents dealing with African, Asian and Latin American history. Additionally, with this funding we intend to develop a public history component for our major. Consistent with the global and comparative focus, instructors will train students in traditional skills and knowledge needed in public history settings (oral history, document preservation, administration, etc.) while encouraging them to apply their skills in the presentation of international themes. Arrangements have been made with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Berman Museum of World History in Anniston, Alabama, to provide consultations, instruction, and internships for eligible students and provide further venues for undergraduate learning. By expanding and diversifying our students' research materials while providing them alternative career paths involving the study of global and comparative history, we hope to encourage greater undergraduate interest in the program and to highlight the region's historical resources. As part of this curricula transformation and in accordance with guidelines promoted in the La Pietra Report, we recognize the need to improve our own instructional techniques and areas of expertise. Through the assistance of an NEH Focus on Teaching Grant, history faculty at Miles College will engage in a series of intensive professional development seminars over the course of the 2001-2002 academic year. The purpose of these seminars will be to design a standard rubric and course outline for the inclusion of global and comparative themes in our World Civilization and U.S. History surveys. Themes we wish to examine include: manifestations of identity, the structure of inequality, migration of peoples, environment, disease, zones of contact, technology, and how to integrate these topics into course instruction. Assisting us in developing new strategies will be scholars already well established in this area of history instruction. Peter Stearns, the author of the global themed textbook World History in Brief, recently adopted for use in World Civilization surveys at Miles College, will preside over our first workshop and assist us in future course design and curriculum refinement. Another key goal of the seminars is to incorporate Internet technology into the classroom. Patrick Manning, director of the World History Resource Center at Northeastern University, will conduct a workshop on how to best incorporate the web and online research materials into global history instruction. With his assistance we hope to develop Internet- based World and U.S. history projects in which history majors must participate before graduation. Through this process, students will develop greater insight into historical research, obtain additional access to international research materials, and acquire extensive Internet familiarity that they may not obtain through conventional history curricula. Much work still needs to be done before the history major at Miles College is established and the curricula shaped around The La Pietra Report. Yet, in an era when many history programs across the nation are in need of more funding and support, the circumstances leading to the establishment of this curriculum provide reason for optimism among members of our profession. Innovative, relevant, externally-funded improvement of history instruction at the post-secondary level can still take place. Perhaps more important, new paradigms on history instruction need not remain in theory only. As evidenced through the situation at Miles College, ideas such as The La Pietra Report can become reality. Robert Cassanello and Daniel S. Murphree are Assistant Professors of History at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama. Read the LaPietra Report online at <http://www.oah.org/activities/lapietra/>. |
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