REU Site: The Parker Academy: Investigating the Intersection of Freedom, Social Justice, Archaeology, History, and Geography

Northern Kentucky University, Newport KY

Investigators

Abstract

This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the SBE Directorate. As such, it has both scientific and societal benefits, and it integrates research and education. This multi-institutional project is engaging diverse student participants in field-based and archival research by exploring important problems of race, gender equality, and social justice in American History as evidenced by the Parker Academy (founded 1839) in southern Ohio. The Parker Academy, which closed its doors in 1892 was, for 53 years, a microcosm of the problems and solutions to the divisions that led to the American Civil War and to the tensions and inequalities of its aftermath. Its founders were staunch abolitionists who risked their lives, possessions and property for believing in and teaching human equality; and perhaps most presciently for making their Academy the first preparatory school in the country to house multiracial, coeducational classrooms. These facts, together with the Parker Academy's precise location on the Ohio River in Clermont County, Ohio, literally just across the river from what was once slave-holding Kentucky, make the Parker Academy a nationally significant educational, and abolitionist-driven, institution. The Academy, its founders, supporters and students have not been the subject of serious scholarly investigation, until now. Our preliminary research and excavations have already begun to shed light on this landmark. Our project will bring long overdue local and national attention to the Parker Academy through public history and archaeology, geography, community engagement and science education. The Parker Academy REU is a collaboration among historians, geographers, and anthropologists (archaeology and ethnography). Over three summers (2017, 2018, 2019) 45 undergraduate research fellows (15/year) will engage in interdisciplinary problem-based research that will contribute to the scientific and historical understanding of freedom, racism, gender inequality, and the evolution of education and historical activism in North America. Research resulting from this REU is designed to accomplish four objectives: (1) to facilitate the in-depth involvement of students in field and archival work that will contribute to a focused understanding of the ways in which original scientific and humanistic research are linked, produced, presented and published; additionally, this program will allow student fellows to engage in public outreach focused on pressing real world problems; (2) to introduce undergraduates to the complex ways that race, gender, history, geography, archaeology, and social justice are connected; (3) to train students in research strategies and skills that will identify and explore those connections beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries; (4) to effectively measure the success of the project in achieving its goals, implementing curriculum, and facilitating learning. Ultimately, we aim to examine and contribute to a model of innovative strategies for teaching field-based sciences and for evaluating the educational effectiveness of our approach.