Crossing Divides: Connecting Veterans, Teachers and Students through Oral History

FAIN: ES-288098-22

Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA 24061-2000)
Jason Aaron Higgins (Project Director: February 2022 to March 2025)
James M. Dubinsky (Co Project Director: February 2022 to March 2025)
Trevor Stewart (Co Project Director: August 2022 to March 2025)

A two-week residential institute to help 25 high school teachers incorporate veteran studies into their curriculum by using oral history.

“Crossing Divides” is a Level I, two-week summer institute, from June 5-16, 2023, that will enable twenty-five K-12 educators to incorporate veterans studies into their curricula and train them to do oral history projects as class assignments. An interdisciplinary group of Virginia Tech faculty will host our first institute on veterans and oral history. The first week of the institute will be at the library at Virginia Tech, where participants will engage in a series of workshops with oral historians, educators, scholars, and veterans. During the second week, we will travel to Washington D.C., to tour the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, explore the Military Women’s Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, and visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and World War II Memorial. This institute seeks to help bridge the military-civilian divide and inspire dialogue between veterans, teachers, and students.