Educator Workshops

We are pleased to regularly offer summer teaching institutes and professional development workshops for K–16 educators on topics that relate to Austria and Central Europe. Sessions combine lectures by University of Minnesota faculty and guest speakers, small group discussions, course readings, field trips, and teaching resources to explore international issues and learn strategies for integrating global topics into existing curriculum. Workshops and institutes challenge teachers to combine experience in applying critical thinking and problem-solving skills to international issues with the knowledge and materials needed to engage their students and prepare them for global citizenship in the 21st century.

Past Workshops

World War I at Home and Abroad

April 25, 2015
Instructors: Dr. Gary Cohen, Dr. Alejandro Baer, Dr. Patricia Lorcin, Dr. Kevin Mummey

Water Quality and the Environment: An International Perspective

June 25–29, 2012
Instructors: Christine Yaeger, MS; Claire Bleser, PhD; Carlos Zhingre; Cate Belleveau, MS; Hans C. Kordik, Counselor for Agriculture and Environment, Austrian Embassy; Kirk Allison, PhD; Lyndon Torstenson, National Park Service; Michael Sadowsky PhD; Pat Nunnally, Coordinator, River Life (Institute on the Environment); Patty Hall, President/Co-Founder, H2O for Life; Phil Peterson, MD, Roland Sigurdson, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; Stephanie Harris, PhD Candidate in Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering

Cosponsored by The Center for Austrain Studies, U of MN; Title VI National Resource Centers, U of MN; Institute for Global Studies, U of MN; Horst Rechelbacher Foundation; and Advantage Austria

Renewable Energy: Wind, Solar, and Biofuels in the United States and Central Europe

Friday, January 13, 2012
Presenters: Marcel Frei, General Manager for Bachmann Manufacturing, Austria and US; Hans Kordik, Counselor for Agriculture and Environment at the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC; Shri Ramaswamy, Professor and Head, Dept. of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, U of MN; Ulrike Tschirner, Professor, Dept. of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, U of MN

Sponsored by the Center for Austrian Studies in the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and the College of Science & Engineering, and the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota; Advantage Austria; and Horst Rechelbacher Foundation

They Built America: From Central Europe to the US, 1870–1940

Friday, February 25, 2011
Presenters: James Oberly, Visiting Faculty Center for Austrian Studies, U of MN; Donna Gabaccia, Director, Immigration History Research Center, U of MN; Ann Regan, Editor-in-Chief, Minnesota Historical Society Press; Annemarie Steidl, University of Vienna; Fulbright Visiting Professor in History, U of MN

Sponsored by the Center for Austrian Studies and the Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Spatial Dynamics of Austria and Central Europe in the 21st Century: A look at the heart of Europe

February 14, 2009
Presenters: David Lanegran, Professor, Dept. of Geography, Macalester; Birgit Mühlenhaus, GIS Lab Instructor & Mgr., Macalester; Ian Mühlenhaus, GIS Lab Mgr & Lecturer, U of WI, River Falls; Rhoda Hubbard-Anderson, Hutchinson Middle School; Sharon Shelerud, Burnsville High School; Discussion with Thomas Koenig, Austria and Benjamin Stoltenburg, Germany

Ethics of Medicine: The Power to Heal, The Power to Harm

April 11–12, 2008
Keynote Speaker: John Eyler, PhD, University of Minnesota; Guest Lecturer: Eva Kor, CANDLES Museum, Terre Haute, IN: Holocaust survivor; Panel: Marjorie Bingham (moderator), Dr. Robert O. Fisch, Eva Kor, Stephen Feinberg

Exploring Austria: Multiculturalism in the Habsburg Empire

Saturday, April 14, 2007
Russell Christensen, professor, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Hamline University