Teachers May See the World Through the Asa Grant Hilliard III Road Scholar Award for Lifelong Learning
While teachers attempt to bring the global experience to life in the classroom, educators will now be given the opportunity to see firsthand what they’ve been teaching.
A new travel scholarship has recently been announced for teachers of color through the Road Scholar program, an initiative of Elderhostel, the largest not-for-profit educational travel organization for adults.
The Asa Grant Hilliard III Road Scholar Award for Lifelong Learning offers a $5,000 scholarship to an educator of color with at least 10 years of experience in education.
The scholarships will be awarded in 2008, which offers an opportunity to experience a Road Scholar or Elderhostel program anywhere in the world.
Applicants will be asked to write an essay focused on the importance of lifelong learning to the African-American community and to describe the ways in which they will utilize their learning/travel experience with Road Scholar to positively influence and make a difference in their communities – to truly reflect Dr. Hilliard’s philosophy about educational travel.
Dr. Hilliard was a world-renowned Pan-Africanist, educator, historian and psychologist, who remains an icon for his advocacy of the importance of African history, culture and influence. He was also known for his global contributions to education and for his special affinity for conducting study tours to Egypt for thousands of travelers.
In responding to the scholarship award, Patsy Jo Hilliard, widow of Dr. Hilliard said, “I am pleased that travelers will have the opportunity to explore new sites and return home and make significant contributions to their communities and/or classrooms on new information gained on the program, which can improve the quality of life for all involved. This is what Dr. Hilliard focused on in his travels – study, study, study.”
Applications and nominations will be accepted until August 31, 2008. A winner will be selected by a panel that includes experts and leaders in education and lifelong learning, as well as a member of the Hilliard family. The award will be presented at the November 2008 meeting of the National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE) in Atlanta, Ga.
“Teachers and other educators have long known the value of lifelong learning,” said Quentin Lawson, executive director of NABSE. “We are delighted to work with Elderhostel and Road Scholar to present the opportunity to learn and travel to dedicated educators.”
The Asa Grant Hilliard III Road Scholar Award for Lifelong Learning is a part of a national outreach initiative of Elderhostel.
“Education has always been at the core of our mission, said James Moses, president and CEO of Road Scholar and Elderhostel. “As a lifelong learner and proponent of learning and travel, Dr. Hilliard lived the values we espouse. We are pleased to offer this scholarship in his memory to provide an opportunity for an outstanding educator to experience a learning adventure with Road Scholar or Elderhostel.”
Teachers may apply online at www.roadscholar.org/hilliardaward.
Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III
(1933-2007)
A true renaissance man, Dr. Hilliard’s influence was felt around the world, as he insisted that the knowledge of African history and culture was essential to the mental health and wholeness of African people.
He co-chaired the First National Conference on the Infusion of African and African-American Content in the school curriculum. In his classic document, “Saving the African-American Child,” co-authored with the late icon Dr. Barbara A. Sizemore and other members of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, Dr. Hilliard insisted that academic and cultural excellence were inseparable companions. The complete education of children of African descent demands both.
Dr. Hilliard brought study groups to Ghana and Egypt for 30 years. He was an educational psychologist and a leading proponent of Afrocentric studies in public schools. Since 1980, Dr. Hilliard had been the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University. He previously had spent 18 years on the faculty of San Francisco State University, where he became dean of education.
For more than two decades, Dr. Hilliard was a leader of Afrocentricism, an ethnic history movement that highlights historical achievement among blacks – in part to boost minority students’ self-esteem.
Dr. Hilliard became a consultant to Atlanta schools during the implementation of training guides known as the “African-American Baseline Essays.” The essays, developed by educators in Portland, Ore., view ancient black Egypt as the birthplace of the philosophical, mathematical and scientific theories that formed civilization. He is quoted in the Washington Post as stating, “We mis-teach European history, as we mis-teach American history,” he said. “Basically, what we should be teaching is the whole story, the truth. That’s the bottom line.”
He was born on Aug. 22, 1933 in Galveston, TX, to a high school principal and a mother who was a Pentecostal minister. Dr. Hilliard graduated in 1955 from the University of Denver, where he also received a master’s degree in counseling in 1961 and a doctorate in education psychology in 1963.
He was a former board member of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and was a founding member of the National Black Child Development Institute.
Dr. Asa Grant Hilliard III died August 13, 2007 in Cairo, Egypt, of complications to malaria.
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