The four-year project, called “History Gateways”, will launch in January. It is made possible by a $1.65 million dollar grant from the Mellon Foundation to the AHA. The funds will be split among two- and four-year higher education institutions in New York, Chicago and Houston. In addition to UH, participating institutions in Houston include University of Houston-Downtown, Houston Community College and Texas Southern University.
The project builds a “community of practice” among regional and national educators to draw on their collective experience and knowledge in the classroom.
“The AHA-directed project will assist the American history faculty to refine their approaches in teaching the important critical reading and writing skills required for anyone to succeed in this global information-based economy,” said Philip Howard, chair of the UH Department of History. “For the past decade we have emphasized to our students that these competencies are what makes majoring in history still relevant to any career that they choose to pursue.”