Summer Institute for Merced-area teachers

UCSC Hosts Summer Institute For Merced High School Teachers

SANTA CRUZ, CA–This summer, 36 teachers from the Merced Union High School District will attend a five-day humanities institute at the University of California, Santa Cruz, focused on the theme, "The Peoples and Cultures of the Central Valley." The institute takes place August 9-13.

Participants will work with UCSC faculty to explore the ways in which instruction in many humanities disciplines-reading, writing, history, culture, political science, and literature-can be aligned around the theme of diversity in the Central Valley.

Students in the Merced Union High School District represent an ethnically diverse population in a low-income area, and the University of California is reaching out to such students, who are traditionally underrepresented at the university, in an effort to help them become eligible to attend a UC campus after they graduate. The institute is being offered by UCSC’s Educational Partnership Center and the Humanities Division.

Three UCSC faculty members from history, languages, and writing will serve as mentors for the teachers, with assistance from faculty in American studies, history, literature, Spanish language, and writing. Following the institute, the Merced teachers will return to their district to provide leadership to approximately 300 teachers of English, English as a second language, social sciences, special education, and world languages, including Spanish, Hmong, Japanese, French, and German.

Invited high schools include Merced, Golden Valley, Atwater, and Livingston, which combined serve approximately 9,000 students in grades 9- 12 on the east side of Merced County.