Expanding iCAMP: Humanities Inquiry and Public Engagement

FAIN: ASB-292336-23

West Chester University of Pennsylvania (West Chester, PA 19383-0001)
Laquana Cooke (Project Director: November 2022 to present)
Janneken Smucker (Co Project Director: April 2023 to present)

A two-year project engaging underserved high school students with public digital humanities projects

A Spotlight on Humanities award will expand iCAMP Academy by offering critical pedagogical experiences, digital skills, and DIY cultural practices through a lens of public digital humanities (DH). We build on iCAMP, a successful program for college-readiness, critical thinking, and digital skills with high school students from School District of Philadelphia. We expand iCAMP with 3-phases to critically engage participants with DH, before, during and after iCAMP: Phase 1, Pre-iCAMP Academy a 5-day workshop led by an external DH expert for faculty and undergraduate near-peer mentors; Phase 2, iCamp Academy, modeling and teaching principles of DiY praxis to 30 high school students; and Phase 3, Reflection and Renewal Workshop a key step in the critical praxis process, in which participants reflect on pre-Workshop and iCamp. The award will result in an expansion of iCamp by focusing on humanistic inquiry centered on student-created public humanities projects centered on Philadelphia.