FCT Seminars combine classroom learning with on-site visits led by expert humanities scholars.

Participants find time for reflective thinking in every seminar.

Summer Seminars

Application submissions for the FCT Summer Seminars 08 season is now complete.

FCT Summer Seminars provide professional development in the humanities to outstanding Florida teachers from all disciplines and grade levels K-12. Teachers who are selected are invited to attend an all-expense-paid, five-day residential seminar in the Tampa Bay Area or other specified site, depending on the seminar.

All seminars are led by distinguished university scholars and provide a high level of academic content, including the latest scholarship and resources available to teachers. Seminars are aligned with Sunshine State Standards, and in-service certificates are awarded to all participants for submission within their own districts. By offering professional renewal and intellectual stimulation in a collegial setting, seminars rekindle the spirit that inspired educators to teach in the first place.

Eligibility
Although Florida Center for Teachers seminars are designed to provide rich content for teachers in the humanities disciplines, social studies, history, English, art, and drama, seminars are open to full-time teachers, guidance counselors and media specialists currently employed in Florida K-12 schools.

Costs

Registration fee:
A $50 registration fee will be used to hold your place upon acceptance of our invitation to attend.  This fee entitles you to a one-year membership to the Florida Humanities Council (FHC).  Membership benefits include a subscription to our award-winning FORUM magazine, mailed notices of upcoming FHC programs in your area and discounts at the Florida Gathering.

First time attendance:
As a reward for committed teaching, applicants accepted to a summer seminar for the first time attend free of charge. Their tuition, room and board, as well as all seminar materials, are covered through grants and scholarships provided to the Florida Center for Teachers from education foundations, corporations and individuals. See 2007 FCT Funders.

Subsequent attendance:
Teachers who have attended a seminar are eligible to attend again. Registration forms must be accompanied by a check for $500 paid either by the FCT alumnus or by a sponsoring organization (an education foundation, local business, or district professional development funds).

If alumni of FCT are chosen by their districts as Teachers of the Year finalists or receive other awards that include a week-long seminar, the $500 fee will be waived, and they may attend free of charge. The awards must clearly state that a Florida Center for Teachers seminar is included in the award package for the waiver to apply. Sponsoring organizations will be invoiced.

Travel:
Teachers who travel more than 400 miles round-trip may apply for a travel reimbursement of $100. Teachers who travel more than 800 miles round trip may apply for a travel reimbursement of $200.

Location
Located in St. Petersburg, surrounded by Tampa Bay on the east and the Gulf of Mexico on the west, the FCT seminar program takes advantage of the area's rich natural environment and cultural urban life. For many seminars, participants are lodged at the Continuing Education Conference Center on the Eckerd College campus. Other relevant locations are the sites for selected seminars. Each participant is always housed in a single occupancy room.

June - July 2008 Summer Seminars
Summer Seminar Schedule
 

THE FLORIDA DREAM: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE SUNSHINE STATE
June 23 - 27

From a swampy southern backwater to bellwether mega-state, Florida’s 20th century transformation from Dixieland to dreamland is a compelling historical saga.  A state of only 500,000 residents at the outset of the 20th century is now home to 18 million people.  A state that was predominately white, Protestant and southern-born is today one of the most ethnically, racially and religiously diverse states in the country.  Modern Florida is where modern tourism was conceived and retirement was redefined, where space was conquered and a new batch of words was ushered into the American lexicon:  theme parks, space age, sunbelt, snowbird, shopping mall and suburban sprawl.  In a state where 67 percent of the population was born elsewhere and 1068 new residents arrive each day, including teachers and students, this workshop offers educators an opportunity for a lively exploration of the fascinating historic and cultural trajectory of Florida in the 20th Century. Among the topics we will explore are: the land boom, tourism, agriculture and environment, technology, immigration, and the internationalization of Florida.

Lead Scholar: Gary Mormino, Frank E. Duckwall Professor of Florida History, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg

Seminar takes place at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida.

LOS LATINOS: THE VIEW FROM FLORIDA
July 14 - 18

From Miami's Little Havana to the immigrant world of West Tampa, from Immokalee farm worker centers to the cigar cities of Key West and Ybor City, Latinos have helped to shape Florida's cultural fabric. Examine the complexities of race, culture, ethnicity, identity, and nationality through a Latin lens. Probe the implications of the New Latino political movements, debates about immigrant rights, and the politics of diversity in our attempt to build a definition of what it means to be "Floridian" in the new century.

Scholar: Paul Dosal, Professor of Latin American History, Executive Director, ENLACE FLORIDA, University of South Florida Tampa

Seminar takes place at University of South Florida in St. Petersburg, Florida.   

BETWEEN COLUMBUS AND JAMESTOWN:  SPANISH ST. AUGUSTINE

July 14 - 18

The role of St. Augustine and Florida is often overlooked in the study of US colonial history, a study that often begins with the founding of Jamestown.  Participants in this seminar explore the history and the cultures that created this fascinating colonial city. They examine the role the sea played in the city’s founding and development; the nature of the relationship between Spanish colonists and Native Americans; the role of the military in the founding, development, and everyday life of colonial Spanish St. Augustine; the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in shaping the colonial experience of the Spanish settlement; how women, native peoples, and people of color fit within the colonial social hierarchy. They reflect on the question of who writes history and how it is disseminated and the larger role that Spanish exploration and colonization played in America’s development.

Lead Scholar: James Cusick, Curator, Special Collections, P.K. Young Library, University of Florida, Gainesville
Seminar takes place at Flagler College in St. Augustine

JUMP AT THE SUN: ZORA NEALE HURSTON AND HER EATONVILLE ROOTS
June 15 - 21
June 22 - 28
June 29 - July 5

Three six day-workshops are open to teachers nationwide.  Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, they require a separate application form.  For detailed information and an on-line application form, click on www.flahum.org/Zora.

For further information regarding the Florida Center for Teachers:
Florida Center for Teachers
c/o Florida Humanities Council
599 Second Street South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
ph 727-873-2009
e-mail aschoenacher@flahum.org