Berkshire Country Day School Teacher Kathleen Meyer Receives National Endowment for the Humanities Grant

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BCD Teacher Kathleen Meyer Receives National Endowment for the Humanities Grant

LENOX, MA (04/22/2010)(readMedia)-- Kathleen Meyer, a local teacher from Berkshire Country Day School in Stockbridge, MA, has been selected from a national applicant pool to attend one of 20 summer study opportunities supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Endowment is a federal agency that each summer supports Landmarks of American History and Culture workshops so that teachers can study with experts in humanities disciplines.

Meyer will participate in a workshop entitled "The Most Southern Place on Earth; the Music, Culture, and History in the Mississippi Delta." The program will be held on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland, MS, and directed by Dr. Luther Brown, Associate Dean for Rural and Regional Studies. The forty teachers selected to participate each week will receive a stipend of $1200 to help cover their travel, study, and living expenses.

The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, Culture, and History in the Mississippi Delta will allow participants to explore the heritage of the Mississippi Delta. The Delta is a vast floodplain formed by the Mississippi River. It was still largely wilderness during the Civil War, and was rapidly cleared to support cotton plantations based on sharecropping. It is the birth place of the Blues and also Rock 'n' Roll. It has been the scene of many civil rights activities and it has produced many political leaders, authors and artists. Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Charley Pride, Fanny Lou Hamer, Richard Wright, Hodding Carter, Craig Claiborne, and B.B. King all hail from the Mississippi Delta. Workshop participants will travel throughout the Delta, visiting places where important events transpired and listening to lectures presented by historians and other experts.

Meyer has been teaching Middle and Upper School English and History at BCD since 2005. She holds a B.A. in Medieval History from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a M.A.T. in U.S. History and Education from the University of Illinois Chicago. Berkshire Country Day School is an independent school for students in Preschool through Ninth Grade.