Executive Summary

Fairfield University and Herzen State Pedagogical University Partnership Program
American Studies: New Curricula and New Pedagogies for English and the Social Sciences

Executive Summary

Fairfield University and Herzen University will partner with Pomor, Kaliningrad, and Cherepovets State Universities, three pedagogical universities in Northwest Russia, to develop new curriculum and to introduce new pedagogies in English and the social sciences, including history. This project builds off of seven years of cooperative endeavors between Herzen and Fairfield and three years of work with eight pedagogical universities in Northwest Russia.

Scarce resources hinder curricular and pedagogical innovation at the pedagogical universities. This project will provide a focused infusion of resources to enhance the faculty, the curriculum and teaching techniques.

The project has four major program elements - semester exchanges, summer seminars, American Studies Resource Centers, and Internet communication. First twelve Russian faculty will spend one semester at Fairfield University. While there they will create twelve new courses and twenty-four new course modules and will purchase print and audio-visual resources to support those courses. Second, these faculty and their Fairfield mentors will conduct weeklong seminars in Russia to present the curricular and teaching innovations to a larger audience of faculty in the target fields. Third, resource centers with up to $8000 worth of books and audio visual resources will be developed at each partner institution. Fourth, dedicated, networked computers will be provided at each Russian partner university to facilitate communication, dissemination of project results and exposure to additional innovation through the Internet.

The long-term impact will reach the project institutions, other pedagogical universities in Russia, and the secondary and primary schools they serve.