Local Teacher Receives National Recognition

Cary Collins, a Social Studies teacher at Tahoma Junior High School, has been selected as an NEH Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of twenty-two NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops. The National Endowment for the Humanities is a federal agency that each year supports summer study opportunities so that teachers can work with experts in humanities disciplines.

Collins will participate in a workshop entitled “From Immigrants to Citizens: Asian Pacific Americans in the Northwest.” The one-week program will be held twice this summer in Seattle at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience and will be taught by national and local faculty including Dorothy Fujita-Rony (University of California, Irvine), Madeline Hsu (University of Texas at Austin), Shirley Hune (University of Washington), Moon-Ho Jung (University of Washington), Erika Lee (University of Minnesota), Gary Y. Okihiro (Columbia University), and Gail M. Nomura (University of Washington). The seminar will offer lectures as well as field trips in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District, and to other regional sites of historic and cultural significance, such as Port Townsend, Eagledale Ferry Dock - Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, and the Khalsa Gurmat Center (Sikh education site) in Renton.

The 72 teachers selected to participate in the program each receive a $1,200 stipend to help cover their travel, study, and living expenses. The approximately 1,584 teachers who participate in these programs will teach more than 198,000 American students the following year.