News Release

Grant enables schoolteachers to walk in Franklin’s footsteps

February 10, 2008

For the third year, Penn State Harrisburg is the educational leader in providing schoolteachers from throughout America an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded the college and its School of Humanities a $175,000 grant to support summer workshops for 80 teachers in Philadelphia and a free web site available to anyone aimed at increasing understanding and awareness of the role Franklin played in the founding of the nation.

The most recent grant brings the total to more than $500,000 which NEH has committed exclusively to Penn State Harrisburg for the Franklin-focused education effort.

Associate Profess of History and Humanities George Boudreau indicates the grant renewal came as a result of overwhelmingly positive response from participants the first two years, and the extensive use of the web site by teachers throughout the nation. Also noted is Boudreau’s national reputation as a leading Franklin scholar and his work on the subject with students of all ages. He is also on the speaker’s list for the Smithsonian Teaching American History Program and has already given five lectures on the subject this year.

Carol Baldridge, a past participant in the program and a third grade teacher at Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia, mirrors the NEH endorsement by saying, “Charged with teaching about Philadelphia, I began to explore Ben Franklin and found the NEH workshop. The lectures from experts in the field, including everything from music to art, politics to trade fleshed out my own knowledge of Franklin. This allowed me to create a curriculum that crossed disciplines and gave my students a better idea of life in the time of Franklin. I have taken three NEH workshops and they all have been excellent.”

“NEH has once again endorsed the quality and national reputation of our Humanities programs and faculty expertise with this generous grant,” Boudreau says. “Schoolteachers and children throughout the nation – and even the world – will benefit from the workshops and website.”

Through the workshops entitled “A Rising People: Benjamin Franklin and the Americans” the weeks of June 28 to July 4 and July 5 to 10, “schoolteachers will study with major scholars of early America and visit sites that Franklin knew,” says Boudreau. “Understanding Franklin is essential to understanding the history of the United States.”

In addition, the Landmarks of American History grant also includes the Penn State Harrisburg creation of the web site providing free access to lesson plans, original sources, images of the founding era, and other materials for all teachers and interested persons.

Many of the thousands of schoolchildren who visit Philadelphia each year, Boudreau points out, have been found to have little understanding of Philadelphia’s importance in the creation of the U.S. and many teachers have no follow-up information. “Through the workshops, teachers will understand Franklin much more and at the same time we have created information for all teachers to use on the internet at www.teachingfranklin.org,” Boudreau adds.

“Franklin’s Philadelphia offers a glimpse not just at a person, but at an entire era, and changing ways of life, thought, government, and society,” Boudreau says. “Men and women, rich, poor, and middle class, multi-ethnic and multi-racial – these were the people Franklin saw daily in Philadelphia. Teachers will study these lives through eighteenth-century buildings, art and material culture, and writings from the era.”

The program’s workshops will be conducted in the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Applications for the summer workshops will be available through the teachingfranklin.org Web site. All applications are due March 15, 2009.