From BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY
Bowling Green State University is one of only nine universities nationwide to receive a $1.95 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen civic education and American history instruction for K-12 educators.
The three-year award will support Living CIVICSs, an initiative that will provide yearlong professional development for K-12 teachers through seminars, public programming, mentoring, and access to original classroom resources produced by BGSU faculty, staff, and students. The program will culminate with a weeklong immersion program during which participants will travel to historical sites throughout Ohio to enhance their knowledge about American history, founding principles, and civic life.
The grant builds upon Bowling Green’s expanding portfolio of federally supported civic education initiatives. In 2025, the university received more than $620,000 in federal funding to develop CIVICs 250, a project designed to deepen understanding around the country’s founding and evolution over the past 250 years.
“Since its founding in 2024, the Democracy and Public Policy Network has been focused on ensuring students at BGSU, K-12 teachers, high school students, and community members have opportunities to meaningfully engage with civics education,” said Ellen Schendel, Ph.D., dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “The Living CIVICs grant is both a validation of this good work and an opportunity to expand it.”
The award expands the work of the BGSU Democracy and Public Policy Network in the Department of Political Science, which has earned national recognition for its public opinion poling, civic education initiatives, public forums, and research examining democracy and founding principles.
“We are thrilled to support teachers as they work to build the civic leaders of tomorrow,” said Robert Alexander, Ph.D., director of the Democracy and Public Policy Network and principal investigator for the grant. “This project will equip educators with the tools to use original documents to support their teaching, whether it is through historical documents, original public opinion polling we conduct, podcasts students create, or through white papers using original research produced by our faculty. This grant enables us to connect professors, students, teachers, and community in meaningful ways that work to serve the public good.”
The successful grant team was led by Alexander, Savitri Kunze, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, and Alex Butler, Ph.D., assistant professor of elementary social studies education.
Additional information about teacher recruitment and program activities will be announced in the coming months.
