cowan center brochure

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The CowanCenter CouncilLaura BaldwinBetty BellamyRussell BellamyDr. Bainard CowanRex CummingDavid GriffinClyde HendersonSue MaclayJoy MankoffDiane MilesA. Steven RaabDr. Diane RavitchBetty RegardEmily RodenDeedie RoseDr. Dan RussDr. Diana SenechalDr. David SweetBrian WilliamsKim Williams

The AlumniCouncilJoy BarnhartDr. Carol FrançoisSharon A. HarrisDr. Nancy Cain MarcusDr. Donna McBrideDr. Dawson Orr Jennifer ParvinClarissa PlairNelda Cain Pickens

Dallas InstituteBoard of TrusteesJ. Russell Bellamy, PresidentDr. J. Larry AllumsLaura BaldwinAlbert C. Black, Jr.Marie BrehmJohn R. Castle, Jr.Rex CummingBarry M. GoldenDavid GriffinSharon A. HarrisClyde HendersonKim Jordan, LifeSue MaclayJoseph R. MannesDr. Nancy Cain Marcus, LifeMargaret McDermott, LifeNelda Cain PickensA. Steven RaabAnne ReederBetty RegardDr. Joanne H. Stroud, LifeDr. Gail Thomas, LifeFred C. Wilkinson

Teachers Alumni Advisory BoardDoretha AllenCamille CainAlfonso CorreaMike CrivelloRon FrancisMolly GittemeierAllen GrayJennifer GunnLaura HayesLois HardawayKristen HarrisSharon A. HarrisGladys HerreraTiffany HolmesYvonne JanikAndy MercurioEdwina NicholsonBelinda NowlinOnyema NwezeCatherine PateIsabel RamírezPamela WhatleyAmy WilkinsonRuss York

Advisory BoardNancy J. AllenRandy D. GordonRonald M. MankoffMary Jane RyburnStewart H. Thomas

Dr. Claudia Allums, DirectorThe Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture’sLouise and Donald Cowan Center for Education

[email protected] or 214-981-8813

The Dallas InsTITuTeof humanITIes anD CulTure

Special Thanks to Kathy King Photography

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh Street | Dallas, Texas 75201 | www.dallasinstitute.org | 1

Table of Contents

THE COWANS: A BRIEF HISTORY.....................................................................................................................................3

WHY THE HUMANITIES?....................................................................................................................................................4

FEATURES OF COWAN CENTER PROGRAMS................................................................................................................5

THE COWAN CENTER PROGRAMS CHART.....................................................................................................................6

COWAN CENTER PROGRAMS..........................................................................................................................................7

THE TEACHERS ACADEMY...............................................................................................................................................8

THE SUE ROSE SUMMER INSTITUTE FOR TEACHERS.................................................................................................9

THE SUMMER INSTITUTE ALUMNI SYMPOSIUMONE-DAY CONFERENCESCOMMUNITAS REUNION EVENTS GRADUATE COURSES AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ..................................................................................10

THE PRINCIPALS INSTITUTE...........................................................................................................................................11

THE EDUCATION FORUM

THE SUPERINTENDENTS SYMPOSIUM........................................................................................................................ 12

WHAT TEACHERS GAIN FROM TEACHERS ACADEMY PROGRAMS...........................................................................13

DATA AND COMMENTS...............................................................................................................................................14-16

The Dallas Institute’s Cowan Center for eduCation

2 | The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh Street | Dallas, Texas 75201 | www.dallasinstitute.org

“I leave here inspired by the wonderful professors and confident that I can inspire my students. This

is the type of professional development that should be mandated by districts. It is uplifting and speaks

to something inside a teacher.This course is beyond professional development. It truly changes you.”

Onyema NwezeDallas ISD Reading/Language Arts Coach

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh Street | Dallas, Texas | www.dallasinstitute.org | 3

The Dallas Institute’s Louise and Donald Cowan Center for Education is dedicated to furthering the vision and

work of Drs. Louise and Donald Cowan. The Cowans began their professional careers in the 1940s at Vanderbilt University where Dr. Louise Cowan earned a Ph.D. in literature and Dr. Donald Cowan earned a Ph.D. in physics. They were called to the University of Dallas where Louise Cowan became chair of the English Department and Donald Cowan eventually became President. At the University of Dallas, the Cowans founded the distinctive programs of both the undergraduate and graduate studies that have become nationally recognized for their academic rigor and excellence. In 1980, along with Dr. James Hillman, Dr. Robert Sardello, Dr. Gail Thomas, and Dr. Joanne Stroud, the Cowans left the University of Dallas and founded the non-profit educational organization called the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture to conduct programs that would bring the intellectual resources of a university into the practical life of the city. The Cowans’ work at the Dallas Institute was, and continues to be, focused on excellence in education, particularly in public school education, whose success is vital to a healthy democracy. It is the Cowans’ vision of education–of teaching and learning and school leadership–that is the undergirding philosophy upon which the programs of the Cowan Center are conceived and conducted, where nothing less than the transformation of education is the goal.

The Cowans: A Brief History

4 | The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh Street | Dallas,Texas | www.dallasinstitute.org

Why should a teacher or school leader study the humanities? What purpose does it serve

when there are skills and management issues that clearly need to be learned and implemented? The quick answer is that teaching, learning, and leading are more than an aggregate of skills and information. Skills and knowledge are a critical part of an educator’s craft, but wisdom is required for the effective and meaningful transmission of the habits of learning that can prepare one for the challenges and joys of life. The kind of wisdom that is capable of inspiring learning issues from someplace else, from an awareness of the value of less tangible qualities of human things. A good education for teachers and leaders does not sacrifice skills and knowledge but equips them with the wisdom that enables them to help enlarge their students’ sensibilities so that students, too, will better understand not only how to do things but how to be in the world as individuals and in community. Wisdom needs to be cultivated on an ongoing basis, particularly for those—such as teachers and education leaders—who are in the “work” of building human lives. This is where the humanities come in. The great power of the humanities lies in their values and wisdom, not in their factual information. An authentic learning experience can occur in any field—history, philosophy, the sciences, to name a few. However, great literary works are particularly useful as the focus of study for a group with varied backgrounds because the skill they require—reading—is the most nearly universal of all skills and yet presents possibilities for many levels of learning and for rigorous thinking. For its universality and for its ability to foster wisdom, great literature is the basis for all Cowan Center programs.

Why the Humanities? As representations of significant and difficult situations in human life, great literary texts are accessible to everyone with an open heart and mind, yet the depths of human experience they plumb are inexhaustible. Something more can always be learned from them, insights that can have an immediate impact on the learner’s attitude or perspective, which is often the challenge to be overcome rather than the situation itself. Classic literature, studied seriously in community, is able to liberate the mind and allow fresh approaches to actual situations in life. In the end, the analogies great literature suggests are universal in their application, making them useful resources of wisdom for teachers and for the administrators who lead them.

“What makes a civilization real to its inhabitants, in the end, is not just the splendid edifices at its centre, nor even the smooth

functioning of the institutions they house. At its core, a

civilization is the texts that are taught in its schools, learned

by it students, and recollected in times of tribulation.”

–Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest

“The greatest challenge to our generation is to create a

renaissance in education, one that goes well beyond the basic

skills that have recently been the singular focus of federal ac-tivity, a renaissance that seeks to teach the best that has been thought and known and done in

every field of endeavor.”–Diane Ravitch,

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

“The truth is that our need for the humanities is desperate;

that it is anchored in a real crisis to which others are responding

with real effect; and that the recovery of the humanities, and

the space of observation and reflection they afford, is driven by a desire of the deepest and

most durable kind which only the humanities can meet.”

–Anthony Kronman, Education’s End


Cowan Center programs are designed to promote understanding and wisdom as the highest ends of learning rather

than the acquisition of practical knowledge and skills alone, which are components of learning but not its defining substance. Cowan Center programs accomplish their purpose through a focus on three distinctive features:

the nature of the teaCher In a formal educational system, parents, social institutions, communities, and students themselves play significant roles in students’ academic development. In accomplishing that development, however, the teacher presides as the central figure—the intellectual professional called to the work of teaching and gifted with the ability to teach. As professionals whose chief domain is intellectual activity, teachers deserve respect in a culture that owes its ongoing vitality to the wisdom and maturity of its people. At the same time, respect for the profession evokes in teachers the desire to rise to the demands of their high calling and allows them, in turn, to do their true work, which is to instill in students a love of learning and a desire to mature as that love becomes a lifelong disposition.the nature of the CurriCuLum Cowan Center curricula are distinguished in terms of quality, content, and approach. Regarding quality, only the best that has been thought and said throughout the centuries is studied in order to provoke rigorous thinking and to stir the creative imagination. Further, Cowan Center curricula are grounded in content rather than methods and pedagogy, which are the focus of most training for teachers and administrators. Increasing practical skills is important in both a teacher’s and an administrator’s ongoing development. More difficult—and far more long-term—for educators to achieve is wisdom, which is essential for conducting oneself effectively in the complex terrain of education where all “elements” are human beings and where the ultimate end is excellence of mind and soul for individuals and communities. An

Features of Cowan Center Programseducator’s coming into wisdom is an ongoing, accumulative process and must be the concern of everyone engaged in education—particularly teachers and administrators—whose work is to nurture the foundation of wisdom in students. Finally, Cowan Center curricula are distinguished by their approach to the study of literature. One of only two scholars in the twentieth century to have conceived of a literary genre theory, Dr. Cowan has developed an approach that is not merely a rigorous academic exercise but also a lens through which real human actions and relationships can be recognized and understood. Thus it becomes a means for rigorous intellectual development, as well as for increasing one’s practical understanding of the world.the nature of the deLivery Cowan Center programs are based on the conviction that genuine learning, as opposed to the mere acquisition of skills, is non-competitive and begins with an act of submission on the part of the learner. Cowan Center faculty hold Ph.D. degrees and have worked extensively with the Cowan theory of literary genres and with one another, bringing decades of experience to bear on every program. While pedagogy is not the subject of Cowan Center programs, participants learn through doing; that is, during the course of programs they practice and observe methods and modes that they transfer into their classrooms and schools.

“I was talking to a colleague about the Summer Institute’s impact on me. She asked, why would a math teacher do that? I told her the Institute changed my life. It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t experienced the im-mersion in the classics combined with the inspired teaching from a brilliant, dedicated, and talented faculty. The Institute made me a better teacher because it made me a better person.”–Pamela Whatley, high school math teacher

6 | The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh Street | Dallas, Texas | www.dallasinstitute.org

The Dallas InsTITuTe’s Cowan CenTer for eDuCaTIon

(esT. 2011)

teaChersaCademy

(est. 1987)

PrinCiPaLsinstitute(est. 1989)

eduCationforum(est. 2010)

suPerintendentssymPosium

(est. 2011)

The first of what is now called theSue Rose Summer Institute for Teacherswas conducted in 1984.

The Teachers Academy was established in 1987to house the Summer Institutes and year-roundprograms for school teachers.

All of the programs of the Cowan Centerare based on the first summer seminar.

“Superb professional development. It demands that I imaginenew ways of articulating a vision, attending to the pitfalls, and building that vision to a reality.”–Eric Markinson, Principal


teaChers aCademy Sue Rose Summer Institutes for Teachers • The Epic Tradition (1984) • Tragedy and Comedy (1985) • Lyric (2013) Summer Institute Alumni Symposium One-day Conferences Reunion Events Year-round Graduate Classes

PrinCiPaLs institute Summer Symposium One-day Conferences Evening Seminars

suPerintendentssymPosium An annual, multi-day program for top administrators in public school districts

eduCation forum An annual, multi-day program for citizens and educators

“This day has restored me, not only professionally, but on a deeply personal level. Thank you for doing this work!”

Superintendents Symposium, January 2012

teaChers aCademy–Established 1987

In response to the National Endowment for the Arts’ publication of “A Nation At Risk” (1983), Dr. Louise Cowan conceived

of a two-summer seminar for high school English teachers at the Dallas Institute to address the problems she believed had caused the “rising tide of mediocrity” in the public schools: the quality of curricula and the quality of teacher training. In these summer seminars funded from 1984-1987 by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the curriculum was based on literature rather than on teaching methods. Dr. Cowan knew that studying great works renewed a teacher’s passion for learning while it sharpened both literary skills and insights into human nature. Even though their content was not pedagogy, the seminars were conducted in such a manner that they also provided intensive participatory models of effective classroom methods and management, skills that have been successfully transferred into Pre-K–12 classrooms since 1984. The response to the summer seminars pointed to the need for programming modeled on the summer seminars to be made available during the school year. In 1987 the Dallas Institute established its Teachers Academy to house both the summer seminars–what are now called the Sue Rose Summer Institutes for Teachers–and ongoing opportunities for teachers to engage in distinctive, literature-based learning. Teachers from all grade levels and disciplines now attend Teachers Academy programs. Here they find that the study of works in the humanities–particularly literary classics–revives their imaginations for the complex human work of the classroom while it reengages their own passion for learning.


“I am leaving here with so many thoughts, musings,and questions—the tell-tale sign of a successful 7 hours.”–Miranda Gilliam, English teacher

“I have become a believer again in the

power of the community of the classroom and in

the pursuit of my own ‘authority’ through study.”

–Rebecca Weiss,history teacher


The Summer Institutes are intensive, interdisciplinary, multi-cultural humanities courses based on Dr.

Louise Cowan’s literary genre theory, a theory that is intellectually rigorous yet that also provides a lens by which one can come to understand life itself more fully. Because the Summer Institutes are practically applicable and mentally challenging, teachers serving students Pre-K–12 have found them to be transformative learning experiences. Since 1984, The Epic Tradition has been taught in every even-numbered year and Tragedy and Comedy has been taught in every odd-numbered year. In 2013, the third and final Summer Institute program–The Lyric–will be added to the roster and will be available to alumni every June. Each July, the Summer Institutes welcome teachers from Pre-K–12 classrooms for the intensive, three-week classes. Teachers may apply to earn 6 hours of graduate credit through the University of Dallas, tuition-free, for each July program. The Summer Institutes are conducted in the manner in which Dr. Louise Cowan originally conceived them: breakfast is followed by a graduate-level lecture on the assigned reading. Lectures are followed by two-hour seminars in which expert faculty moderators guide a discussion about the text. Seminars are not “therapy”; rather, they are serious discussions about the intricacies of the images and ideas in the focus text, a practice that cultivates the habit of learning as submission and learning as reflection rather than instant mastery. Afternoons are spent in various ways: panels, discussions, writing, viewing films, and guest lectures, to name a few. Readings for The Epic Tradition typically include the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Divine Comedy, and Moby-Dick, Hesiod’s Theogony, the West African Mwindo Epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and the book of Genesis. Excerpted works include the Popol Vuh, Paradise Lost, and Monkey, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” complete the 3,000 pages of required reading for the Epic summer. Along with essays and readings from philosophers and literary criticism, readings for Tragedy and Comedy typically include: Prometheus Bound, the Oresteia, the Oedipus cycle, the book of Job, Blood Wedding, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Peace, Lysistrata, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Crime and Punishment and Beloved. The Lyric Summer Institute is a week-long, two-year program in June. The Lyric focuses on great lyric poems, primarily written in English but also in translation, with an eye to developing an appreciation of language and a sensitivity for the need for reflection and repose often neglected in the bustle of a technological age. The purpose of all three Summer Institute classes is to help teachers increase in wisdom and revive their passion for learning and growing, wisdom and passion that inform how they inspire and teach their students year after year. Practically speaking, the Epic Tradition helps teachers apprehend the universal codes from which human actions throughout history have been conceived and conducted. Tragedy and Comedy helps teachers discern more clearly the meaning of human actions in life, and the Lyric helps teachers better comprehend how to communicate the ways in which the mind and soul can serve as resources for renewal and understanding.

The Sue Rose Summer Institutes for Teachers

“The Summer Institute helped me find my heart for teaching again. I had thought I would only teach a few more years. This experience has made me feel like I have many more.

Retirement would be a waste of time; I now have more to offer than ever.”–Pat Fugate, middle school math teacher

“The Summer Institutereinvigorates your passion for teaching. The experience makes you stop and examine yourself.It would be hard for me to understand how anyone could complete this program and not be better equipped to satisfy the present and future roles ofteaching and one’s place insociety, in general.”–Tim Miskel, social studies teacher


The Summer Institute Alumni Symposium Conducted each January, the Summer Institute Alumni Symposium is a rare opportunity for Pre-K–12 teachers: a university-style conference in which they present papers they have written on the topic of that year’s session. With the goal of sharpening intellectual rigor and acuity, the Symposium fosters the learning teacher. Summer Institute alumni are the lecturers and discussion moderators in this Symposium, engaging with their peers in an intellectual manner that their daily work rarely affords. The essays presented at the Symposia are published in a monograph each year.

One-Day Conferences

Each semester of the regular school year, the Teachers Academy holds two one-day conferences modeled on the Sue Rose Summer Institutes for Teachers. One conference is of a general nature and is designed to serve the needs of teachers Pre-K–12. The pre-reading required for this conference illuminates aspects of life and learning that are vital for teachers from any grade level or discipline to understand. Although Pre-K–12 teachers are welcome to attend both conferences, the readings for the other one-day conference are literary. This conference is specially planned to give alumni opportunities for ongoing professional development in the manner and rigor of Teachers Academy programs.

Communitas

Communitas is a monthly “booster shot” during the school year for teachers and educators serving Pre-K–12 students. It is a two-hour intellectual conversation and is designed to give adults–whose primary daily community is children–the opportunity to remember and revive a sense of the purpose and ideals that inform their calling.

Reunion Events Reunion events such as the Teachers Academy Dinner-and-a-Movie are conducted to provide opportunities for teachers to renew themselves intellectually and professionally in more informal programs.

Graduate Courses and Professional Development Working in conjunction with the University of Dallas, the Cowan Center offers its conferences and courses for graduate credit that can be applied toward the Masters of Humanities degrees at the University of Dallas. The Cowan Center is also an approved provider for Continuing Professional Education credits through the state of Texas.

“This day felt like a learning oasis.When was the last time I was sorry that lunchtime rolled around?”–Philomena Jones, middle school language arts teacher

“It’s not often I walk away overwhelmed yet yearningfor more. Today, I do.” –Susanne Cotton, English teacher

“The professional development I have attended has dealt with how to impart knowledge and develop teaching strategies. Today, I have been ignited. I am re-discovering learning myself and my passion to inspire my students.”–Gracie Desamito, science teacher


–Established 1989

Principals frequently meet in plenary sessions “on company time,” but they are often united by little more

than their feelings of the shared burden of regulations and reports that constantly mount before them. However, principals are more than managers of systems; they are leaders of learning institutions. As such, they need to inspire learning and community, so their own intellectual development is an ongoing need. With the subtitle “The Humanities and Effective Leadership,” Cowan Center’s Principals Institute programs feature a learning basis for administration and are conducted to give academic campus administrators of all ranks opportunities for experiences in serious learning of the sort that will stimulate their imaginations and increase their awareness of their own authority and responsibility, on their campuses and within their school districts. Principals Institute programs–from the Summer Symposium to one-day conferences and evening seminars–are not conducted to propose standards of management. Rather, grounded in the thoughtful study of literary heroes, Principals Institute programs seek to revive for these campus leaders the heroic human purposes of education, encouraging administrators’ originality and emboldening them to explore individually the available range of authority and responsibility in their means.

“I feel like we truly experienced professional development today.Thank you for giving us the opportunity to grow beyond ourselves.”–Anita Hardwick, Principal

“We came without knowing that this was what we were searching for.”–Paula Craig, Principal

PrinCiPaLsinstitute

“The transformation the Dallas ISD desires will require changes in our understanding

about what education is, what learning is, and what the role of the school is.

It will necessitate a change of heart on thepart of both principals and teachers.

This has been that kind of experience.”–Anne Vincent, Principal

12 | The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh Street | Dallas, TX | www.dallasinstitute.org

eduCation forum–Established 2010

The Education Forum is a multi-day event whose purpose is to highlight and explore an issue in education

that is of critical concern to the nation and to our city. This is achieved through lectures, panels, seminars, and book discussions. Each year, this issue forms the question around which the events of the Education Forum revolve. The first Education Forum was conducted in 2010, and was focused on the question, “What Makes a Good Education?” The second Education Forum was held in 2012 and was focused on the question, “What is the Purpose of an Education?” In a major session, guest speakers were joined by TA alumni in seminars and on panels to discuss a good education in primary content areas: literature and language arts, science and mathematics, history, and music and fine arts.

suPerintendents symPosium–Established 2011

At a time when education reform is at the top of everyone’s list of critical needs, the Superintendents

Symposium was created for a new breed of top administrators, those who would lead by example—by learning. The habit of learning is the vital principle of education and the lifeblood of academic institutions. It needs to be stimulated throughout each school community and district, among educators as well as students. Every teacher needs the experience of learning, and the administrators who lead, guide, admonish, and encourage the work of learning need to be learners, too. Like Principals Institute programs, Superintendents Symposia bear the subtitle “The Humanities and Effective Leadership.” Through the study of great works in the humanities, Superintendents Symposia are active times of reflection, discussion, writing, and thought. These critical interludes give Texas superintendents the chance to engage in genuine learning among peers, enabling them to continue growing not only in their leadership skills, but also in the wisdom of the human condition, which is the chief concern of the educational enterprise.

“This experience allowed me to understand how classic literature, poetry and film can be used to enhance learning.”Superintendents Symposium, January 2011

“This experience was challenging, reflective,

interesting, and ultimately inspiring. I am richerfor the experience.”

Superintendents Symposium, January 2011

“The Superintendents Symposium has been very

illuminating. It has been a long time since I have so critically thought about literature—or

even something other than the immediate business at hand. I was rusty, but greatly enjoyed

the intellectual challenge, more than I thought I would.

It was frustrating, but in a positive way, and has caused

me to think again.”Superintendents Symposium,

January 2012


Evaluations since 1984 have revealed that participating in Teachers Academy programs teach the teachers: • What intellectual academic rigor is and

how to transmit the rigor of their own disciplines to their students;

• How to cultivate a mutually respectful community in the classroom;

• Higher critical thinking skills as they learn to read and interpret difficult texts in literature, history, and philosophy;

• How to create a classroom setting that is collegial yet orderly, supportive yet rigorous;

• How to conduct discussions that probe the deepest meanings in primary texts;

• That writing is another way of knowing and that it must be practiced regularly in order to learn;

• That speaking well and clearly is a sign of those who would call themselves educated.

The following are representative of the professional sensibilities that Teachers Academy programs have cultivated in alumni: • A recognition of the dignity and nobility of

the calling of teaching; • An increased empathy for their students;• A deeper understanding of universal,

human things, enabling teachers to communicate more effectively to students the purposes and the need for developing one’s mind and skills;

• An awareness of the profound responsibilities of the teacher which are achieved by dedicating their lives to learning and growing;

• A renewed passion for learning that overflows into lessons and strategies;

• A restored hope for the enterprise of education;

• The conviction that the work of the teacher is to inspire students to love learning.

What do teachers gain by participationin Teachers Academy programs?

14 | The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh ST. Dallas, Texas | www.dallasinstitute.org

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

DALLAS ISD

PUBLIC

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Attendance by districts and schools in the 2008-2012Sue Rose Summer Institutes for Teachers

“The Institute allows you to look forward, using the past as a guide. As a teacher, this is the place of resurrection, new life and new beginnings.”–Ana Vargas, reading, writing and language arts teacher

The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture | 2719 Routh ST. Dallas, Texas | www.dallasinstitute.org | 15

The impact of recent Sue Rose Summer Institutes for Teachers

“The most important thing that my experience in the Summer Institutegave me is proof that the ideal classroom doesn’t exist merely in theory.”

–Anna Fariñas Gay, English teacher, Dallas ISD

“In rating my summers spent at the Summer Institutes, I would say that the program . . . 0% made no difference in my attitude toward teaching 0% somewhat affected my attitude toward teaching. 38% inspired and encouraged me in my teaching. 68% transformed the way I think about my profession.”

Approximately 1,450 school teachers have gone throughthe Summer Institutes since 1984.

Typically, teachers teach 100 students a year.

On average, teachers teach 15 years after attendingthe Summer Institutes.

To date, Summer Institute participants

have taught or will have taught 2,175,000 students.

2008-2012

Summer Institute Class 2012Summer Institute Class 1984


“We always speak about ‘rigor’ but this Summer Seminar shows us what rigor is. Principals, counselors, and teachers all need to engage in this kind of learning. We all need to continue to be learners and thinkers just like we expect ourstudents to be!”–Lucy Hakemack, Principal

Generous Support for the Dallas Institute’sCowan Center for Education has been provided by:

Rusty and Deedie RoseDr. Nancy Cain Marcus

Mrs. Margaret McDermottThe George and Fay Young Foundation

The National Endowment for the HumanitiesBetty and Gerard RegardKim and Brian Williams

Betty and Russell BellamyGoldman, Sachs & Co. Drs. Claudia and Larry AllumsLaura BaldwinA. Steven and Ginny Raab

Jerald and Emy Lou BaldridgeDavid Griffin and James FerraraSally and Forrest HoglundJoy and Ron Mankoff

Additional Support Provided by 2012 Thank a Teacher Donors:

Nancy and Tal RobertsNelda Cain PickensKathryne and Gene BishopNancy and Gene Carter Deborah and Gary BieritzRex CummingSharon Harris

Kim JordanMelissa and Bob MyerNancy PerotWillard SpiegelmanAbigail and Todd WilliamsDanielle and Gus Gonzales

Ola FojtasekGloria & John Hammack Judy PollockMarilyn AuvermannGeorge EngdahlMelanie FergusonGayMarie KurdiCynthia Mannes

Dorcas and Jeff WeirPam WhatleyJoan Arbery Stephanie CalvoVirginia ClowerIsabelle Collora Paula Craig Patricia EverettMary Jo Ferguson

L O U I S E A N D D O N A L D

C O W A N C E N T E R F O R E D U C A T I O N

Learning on a human scale

THE DALLAS INS TITUTE OF HU MANITIES A ND CUL TU RE

Brandon Garcia Molly GittemeierPatricia Grace Jennifer GunnKristen Harris Anita Jordan Mel KusinPatricia Lindley Natalie and Roshan Mathew

Jo Ann Patton Dennis P. Slattery Claire StrangeSandra StuartRaul Trevino Charlotte Whaley Shana YoungMaria Luisa Zuniga

“Teachers are consecrated persons who have been called to lead others into learning. If they are to lead others to learn,

they must continue themselves to be learners.

Brief, intensive encounters with significant texts in the company of dedicated colleagues and professors is for them a galvanizing

experience and, if we judge from their own testimony, quite sufficient to restore them to the authority and responsibility that they intuitively understand to be rightfully theirs and necessarily to be in

their possession when they enter the classroom.”–Dr. Louise Cowan, Professor of Literature

“At the end of an era dominated by science, approaching a new epoch made possible largely by technology, we desperately

need, both for the transition and the new age to come, the kind of education that for centuries has been called a liberal arts education.

We should make no mistake: The spirit of ‘liberal’ learning is marked by joy. When that joy is absent, it is a sign that we have

ourselves blocked the passages to insight and wisdom.

We need therefore, rather than making the opulence of the great tradition serve us, to grow to the full stature demanded by its genius

and power. For the liberal arts are not merely a received tradition from the world’s past but fully as much an ongoing creation toward

its end, toward the fulfillment of things.” –Dr. Donald Cowan, Professor of Physics

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