Episode 36: Glenn Mitoma, Part One

Glenn Mitoma is a Lecturer in the Discipline of Human Rights and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University.  His research and teaching focus on the history of human rights and human rights education, with current projects on the mid-20th century history of human rights education. He served on the Connecticut State Advisory Committee on Genocide and Holocaust Education, the Executive Committee for Human Rights Educators USA, and was a founding member of the Connecticut Human Rights Partnership and the University and College Consortium for Human Rights Education. (Publications)

In Episode 36, Glenn Mitoma shares the origins of his interest in human rights and human rights education (HRE) and his work at the University of Connecticut. He describes partnership programs between the university and K-12 education and professional development programs in HRE for K-12 educators and their students. Glenn discusses challenges in forging partnerships within a university setting and hurdles and opportunities for HRE at Columbia University and other higher education institutions, and his thoughts on the creation of the University and College Consortium for HRE. Glenn highlights what he sees as a growing interest among  students in programs that advance justice and the barriers constraining non-traditional programs in HRE. Glenn explains the relationships between higher education and popular education in HRE, in addition to popular and community education connections to transformative HRE. Glenn examines the connections between HRE and active K-12 citizenship education and ideas around revisiting history education and the concept of shared memory using an HRE lens. Glenn shares views on U.S. history as part of a global, transnational process and efforts at censoring history and social studies instruction.

Topics discussed:

• Origins of interests in human rights & human rights education
• Work at the University of Connecticut
• Partnership programs between university & K-12 programs
• Professional development programs in HRE for K-12 educators
• Challenges in forging partnerships in a university setting 
• Hurdles & opportunities for HRE at Columbia University & other institutions
• Creation of the University & College College Consortium for HRE
• Growing interest among students in social justice programs
• Relationship between HRE & K-12 citizenship education 
• Revisiting history education via shared memory using HRE lens

Full topic listing available for PDF download
Listen at HREUSA podcast website

Introduction and Closing Music Credit: “Awakening-Spring” by Ketsa, from the Album Night Vision. Available at the Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/night-vision/awakening-spring/

This music is used in accordance with this Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Information about that license is available here https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Human Rights Education Now! is produced and distributed in accordance with Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International. Information about this license is available here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/