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Center provides valuable service
In the early 1990s, when Scott and Lynn Bryce were teaching Holocaust and genocide education classes, there were only two offered at SCSU. Those were under the English and mass communications departments.
But SCSU has come a long way since then. Now there are between 12 and 18 such classes per semester under different departments.
Apart from classes, however, students have another resource on campus which can aid them — the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education. The center, which was founded in 1995, is largely the work of its co-directors, the Bryces.
“The St. Cloud State University supported the center’s mission and goals and provided all the help they could give (in starting up the center),” said Susan Motin, advisory board member for the center.
The center has its office on the second floor of the Miller Learning Resources Center and is staffed by its directors, a secretary, two graduate assistants and four work study students.
“We work with people and help any one who needs help with the subject of holocaust and genocide,” Scott Bryce said.
The center trains interested faculty members, K-12 teachers and the community on holocaust and genocide education and makes available teaching resources and materials. Grants were used to send faculty and K-12 educators to Yadvasham in Israel, Boston and North Western University in Chicago.
But the center’s activities are not confined to St. Cloud; it works nationally and internationally with different holocaust centers and organizations.
One fact that the center can be proud of is that three members interviewed over 30 survivors of the holocaust in the Twin Cities area for Steven Spielberg’s visual foundation project “Shoah,” the Hebrew word for holocaust. Each interview ranged between three and six hours.
The center donates books, periodicals and information on holocaust and genocide to the Miller Learning Resources Center, which now has more than 1,800 books and resource materials on the subject. The center has also hosted many conferences and workshops on holocaust and genocide education on campus and the outside local communities.
Last year, the center also organized a day trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., for more than 30 SCSU faculty and students, as well as several community members. The center paid for half of each participant’s expenses.
“Overall, SCSU students are tremendously favorable towards the issue of the Holocaust,” said Courtney Hill, an adjunct professor who teaches a mass communications class on the Holocaust. “A lot of my students have this inherent desire to better understand what happened during the Holocaust and they try to make the connection with what is going on today.”
Every semester, the center funds and brings 10 to 15 speakers to SCSU in an attempt to make people over here aware of the plight of the Jewish people during the Holocaust years. This semester will be no different, with five main events scheduled. In collaboration with the Mass Communications department, the center is also organizing a two-week study abroad program to Poland that will be equivalent to a three-credit class. Participants will be able to learn about the Holocaust which took place in Poland by visiting various sites such as Nazi death camps.
Anyone interested in knowing more about the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education can visit its Web site at tigger.stcloudstate.edu/~holocaustct.
Tsewang Sangmo Lama can be reached at: [email protected]
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