Ian Hartman named 2016 faculty recipient of the Selkregg Community Engagement & Service Learning Award

The Selkregg Community Engagement & Learning Award encourages, rewards and inspires UAA faculty to creatively engage their students in learning and research that benefits the students and the community at large. Ian Hartman, assistant professor of history, was selected as this year's award recipient for his project, "A Comprehensive Study of African American and Civil Rights History in Southcentral Alaska."

Professor Hartman is deepening an existing partnership with the Cook Inlet Historical Society and building a network of contacts in the NAACP/Anchorage chapter, Shiloh Baptist Church of Alaska and the Martin Luther King Foundation of Alaska to provide African American community leaders, activists and working people an opportunity to share their stories and reflections of life in Anchorage.

The archival research and oral history interviews will emphasize the migration of African Americans to Alaska prior to and during World War II, housing and employment discrimination, mobilization and activism of African Americans during the Civil Rights Era, and the impact and legacy of discrimination into the present. The project will showcase Anchorage as a diverse city with a rich, multicultural history, advancing a new and exciting interpretation of the city. The research will be incorporated into curriculum on the history of Alaska and a new course entitled History of Race and Ethnicity in the American West, bringing together students, community members and educators with an explicit mission to shed light on a history that has remained in the shadows.

For more information about the Selkregg Award, please visit the Center for Community Engagement & Learning (CCEL) website at uaa.alaska.edu/engage.

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