2019–20 Grantees:

Museums, Material Culture and the Historiography of Spanish America
Dr. Colin Reynolds and Antonio Herreria, Phoenix Country Day School

‘By conversing with them, is turned’: Creating an Inclusive Shakespeare Curriculum
Dr. Jasmine Lellock, Newton South High School

An anonymous donor has generously given $15,000 to the RSA to support innovative teaching projects in Renaissance studies by RSA members who teach in secondary schools in the US. This donation responds to what many RSA members indicated in a recent survey about the future of the society—that we need to promote the study of the Renaissance among the next generation of students.

In order to administer this donation, RSA President Clare Carroll has formed an interdisciplinary committee made of up RSA members who all have experience teaching at the secondary level. In addition to Carroll, as Chair, the members of the Committee on Grants for High School Teachers are Lorenzo Buonanno (Assistant Professor of Art, University of Massachusetts, Boston), Lawrence Rhu (Professor Emeritus of English, University of South Carolina), and Susan Forscher Weiss (Professor of Musicology, Johns Hopkins, Peabody Institute). The committee has been charged with calling for proposals for innovative teaching projects, and reviewing and selecting two winners each year for three years (2019–21). Each grant will be for $2,500.

These innovative teaching projects might include, but are not limited to, such activities as attending a theatrical or musical performance, bringing visiting specialists to the school to work with students, and studying early modern art objects in a museum or rare books in special collections. Whatever the proposed project, there is an expectation that the project will result in work done by the students that could be shared in some form on the RSA website so that it might serve as a model for other teachers and students. The committee expects that the teachers leading these projects will present an account of their experience at the RSA Annual Meeting. Of the $2,500 granted, $500 may be used to defray the cost of travel to the conference. Conference registration fees will be waived for grant recipients.

Educators who are not current RSA members are invited to complete the application. Those selected for a grant will be required to join the society or renew their RSA memberships upon receipt. Please contact rsa@rsa.org with any questions regarding the submission process.

The deadline to apply for a grant for the academic year 2019–20 was 25 June 2019. The winning projects will take place during the 2019–20 academic year.

Past Grant Recipients