Sandra Alfers attends U.S. Holocaust Museum's National Higher Education Leadership Summit

Sandra Alfers

Sandra Alfers, Western Washington University professor of German and director of the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity, joined colleagues from across the U.S. in the first national summit of the Higher Education Leadership Initiative organized and hosted by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in early December. 

Since the 1990s, there has been a surge in the opening of Holocaust and genocide studies centers and human rights centers at colleges and universities throughout the United States and, for the first time, the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the USHMM assembled key stakeholders from these centers at a national conference. Panels ranged from “Finding, Keeping, and Creating Resources” to “Navigating Campus Politics and Climate” and “Student Engagement”, and participants also gained access to the Museum’s broad range of academic, public, and research resources.

The summit served as the first step in establishing a more robust network of center directors, with the end goal of supporting and furthering the study of the Holocaust, genocide, and human rights within the higher education landscape.

 

Photo credit: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum