Gavilan Professors Work to Integrate Human Rights into the Classroom

Gavilan College instructors Enrique Luna and Lindsay Padilla were notified in late September that they were chosen among a pool of eight candidates to receive educational fellowships in human rights from Stanford University.

As fellows, the professors will develop curriculum and resources as part of Stanford’s Human Rights Education Initiative, a four-year program geared toward expanding and improving resources in the teaching of human rights at the college level–and beyond.

“The Stanford Human Rights Initiative aims to promote human rights education in California and nationally, and to serve as a model of how faculty can effectively create resources for one another,” Rob Wessing, conference coordinator and associate director of the center for Russian, East European and Eurasian studies at Stanford University, stated in a press release.  

The education initiative–awarded by Stanford’s Division of International Comparative and Area Studies, and the Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education–grants fellows from various community colleges visiting-scholar status and provides them with a stipend for their work.

Luna’s and Padilla’s role will require them to work collaboratively to develop curriculum and conferences, as well as the program’s website.

“A colleague from another college and I are working together to create and re-design the [program’s] website,” said Padilla, who teaches sociology at Gavilan College. “We’re creating a way for teachers in California community colleges to network, and share ideas and activities. My goal is to eventually reach just higher education in general, and then nationally, too.”

Padilla added that the fellowship will give her a “brain board” to assist in her doctoral work at the University of San Francisco, where she’s studying international multicultural education. She said her goal is to connect to teachers who identify as human rights educators, so she can see how their roles translate into the classroom.

While Padilla works on the program’s website, Luna will be working primarily on developing the curriculum, which he said will allow him to continue to advance his skills as an educator.

“I see this fellowship as a way to fulfill my professional responsibility as an educator to continue to upgrade my skills, and participate in scholarship that helps my college and community," said Luna, who has been teaching history at Gavilan College for 16 years.

“I also see this as an opportunity to expand on the work that I began as a doctoral student in international and multicultural education at the University of San Francisco,” he added.

Both Padilla and Luna attended a June conference, titled Teaching Human Rights in a Global Context, and each submitted an application for the fellowship at that time. Padilla said that most of the selected fellows were conference attendees who shared an interest in advancing human rights education.

The fellowship, which is for the 2011-12 school year, gives the faculty the flexibility to keep their current teaching positions and class schedules at Gavilan.  

Information on the education initiative, fellowships, upcoming workshops and teaching materials can be found on the Stanford Human Rights Education Initiative website.