Tim Maxwell, associate professor of English at College of San Mateo, has been awarded a Human Rights Education Fellowship for 2011-12 by the Division of International Comparative and Area Studies (ICA) at Stanford University and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE).

After presenting at a conference in June entitled “Teaching Human Rights in a Global Context,” designed by and for community college educators, Maxwell submitted an application for a fellowship to assist in designing curriculum, developing resources, and coordinating workshops.    “The idea from the very beginning was to allow the community college educators to design and implement a program that’s best suited to their needs,” said Jonas Edman, Curriculum Writer, SPICE, and one of the conference coordinators.  “Through these Human Rights Education Fellowships, the program will definitely benefit from the educators’ own expertise and enthusiasm.”

“My vision of teaching,” Maxwell writes, “has long involved providing students with the means, the opportunity, and, when I can, the inspiration to understand themselves and their relationship to a complex world and to learn how to make it a better place for everyone.  I am honored to have the sponsorship of Stanford to work with like-minded teachers in developing cross-disciplinary curriculum that others may use to help their students to develop a more aware, more active, and more empathetic approach to our troubled and troubling world. I hope to collaborate with CSM faculty across campus in this important work.”

“The Stanford Human Rights Initiative aims to promote human rights education in California and nationally, and to serve as a model of how faculty can effectively create resources for one another,” said Rob Wessling, Associate Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and one of the conference coordinators.  “We are very pleased that Tim Maxwell and so many other community college teachers were interested in this effort.”

For ongoing news of the Stanford Human Rights Initiative, the Human Rights Education Fellows, upcoming workshops, and teaching materials as well as general resources on human rights education, go to www.shrei.org.