To accomplish the goals described in the mission, Dr. Kyunghee Pyun, History of Art, and Dr. Daniel Levinson Wilk, U.S. History, had many preliminary meetings in the course of 2016-2017. wrote a grant proposal in the Humanities Connections, an education category of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the fall of 2017. The final application is available here. [link to PDF]
When the grant was awarded to the team, it was a great honor for the entire community at Fashion Institute of Technology. Pyun and Levinson Wilk lead a team of FIT faculty from the departments of Accessories Design, Interior Design, Communication Design, Illustration, Photography, Fashion Business Management, Fashion Design, Social Sciences, and History of Art. They have participated in four seminars a year for two years, conducted four webinars, created curricular models, solicited scholarship from colleagues and students (including oral history initiatives during the grant first and second years), facilitated conferences in the third year of the grant, constructed a resource website. The team also plan to edit two books that draw on the historical research and pedagogical advances developed by this project. Three consultants—experts in the fields of labor, business, and design history—have advised participating faculty, attend a small number of meetings, and speak at one of the conferences.
Year 1 (2018-2019) focused on faculty learning in a series of seminars and webinars in which faculty read historical literature and develop curricular materials. In Year 2 (2019-2020), faculty fellows continued to develop new curricular materials and pedagogical approaches of experiential learning and begin to implement them in the classroom. Year 3 (2020-2021) concentrated on dissemination and outreach as faculty teach newly enhanced or revised courses and reach out to colleagues at FIT and beyond by hosting two conferences accessible to all campuses in New York City. The dissemination campaign continues in coming years after the conclusion of the NEH-funded project.