McConnell Center launches Montpelier project
The University of Louisville’s McConnell Center will partner with the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia to link Kentucky teachers with top constitutional scholars. November 14, 2014Participants in the McConnell Center’s Teacher Scholars Program, a professional development program for the state’s k-12 social studies teachers, will start attending conferences at Montpelier on full scholarships as early as Spring 2015. Each year, a new group of teachers will visit through the partnership.
Six residential weekend seminars a year will focus on different perspectives on constitutional studies, such as the creation of the Bill of Rights and the role of slavery.
The goal of the program is to help enrich the social studies curriculum across the state, said Gary Gregg, McConnell Center director.
“We’re excited to offer Kentucky social studies teachers the extraordinary opportunity of studying the Constitution literally in James Madison’s backyard,” he said.
Gregg also plans to arrange future Montpelier visits for UofL’s McConnell Scholars, a group of 40 high-performing students enrolled at the center.
The non-partisan McConnell Center, created at UofL in 1991, prepares Kentucky’s top college students to become leaders and offers civic education for teachers, students and the public.