Presentation:

The presentation began with an overview of Florida State University’s (FSU) Center for the Advancement of Human Rights (CAHR). In 2001, the CAHR accepted a three million dollar gift from an anonymous donor to establish a center for teaching, researching, and community service in the area of international human rights. The donor, a law school graduate, requested that the gift facilitate multidisciplinary study. The Florida legislature gave a three million dollar matching grant, and in addition, the Center received several other gifts.  FSU provides an annual budget of several hundred thousand dollars for the Center’s activities.

The director of the CAHR has substantial involvement in human rights work and is a Distinguished Professor of Human Rights and Religion. The Center has published articles in Human Rights Quarterly, various law reviews, Journal of Social Work Research and Evaluation, Theoretical Criminology, Harvard Review, Tikkun, Journal of Religion Ethics, as well as several edited books.

The establishment of the CAHR has generated activities in the area of international human rights, benefiting FSU’s participation in capital campaigns as well as in pursuing externally funded research. Human rights scholarship appeals to potential donors, and has research potential that is relevant to both state and federal agencies and private philanthropies. The CAHR at FSU has received grants and research awards from the U.S. Department of State and Justice, the Florida Departments of Education and Law Enforcement, and several private foundations, totaling $1.5 million dollars for research on human trafficking, restoration of felon voting rights, human rights criminal prosecutions, and reconciling human rights with the current U.S. war on terror.

Professor Maier-Katkin discussed the educational mission of a human rights center that can be aligned with a university’s service and/or community mission(s).  The CAHR has produced films in collaboration with the FSU Film School on human trafficking and survivors of torture, as well as assisting students in finding field placements in international tribunals and non-governmental organizations in Thailand, Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, Peru, Kenya, Lebanon, and throughout the United States.  The Center has provided pro bono legal assistance to asylum cases under the Federal Violence Against Women Act, and its staff has presented at conferences and lecture series on issues including Human Rights and National Security, Interrogation and Torture, and Human Rights and Globalization.  Its students have been placed in field positions around the world, with active involvement in human trafficking education. These activities further a university’s commitment to community service.

Since the founding of the CAHR, the Center has encouraged faculty development and scholarship.  Shortly after the establishment of the CAHR at FSU, a group of approximately twenty-five faculty members from a wide range of disciplines began an interdisciplinary seminar on human rights.  These faculty members met every six weeks for two years, read and discussed various human rights texts, and ultimately created human rights courses across the disciplines. Additionally, a competition was held for faculty members to generate human rights courses in their respective disciplines, which resulted in the creation of more than fifty courses in disciplines as diverse as Music, Linguistics, Theater Arts, Criminology, Political Science, Religion, and more traditional disciplines for human rights education. Additionally, two freshmen honors seminars were created in Interdisciplinary Social Science and Humanities, which are now the cornerstone of a new honors certificate in Human Rights.

Since the founding of the CAHR, the introduction of an honors certificate encourages students to combine classroom work with field experience, international study, and service projects. After completing the freshmen honors seminar, students take three elective courses in Human Rights. The certificate finishes with a capstone-directed independent study in the student’s area of interest. While this program is relatively new, an eventual indicator of success is the rate at which students are motivated to enter graduate or professional programs in related disciplines. In the meantime, the honors certificate will encourage students to pursue a broad liberal arts education, achieve familiarity with several bodies of literature, and develop strong thinking, writing, and research skills.

In the summer of 2008, a group of 28 FSU students, three professors, and a graduate student resident assistant participated in a six-week program entitled “Nazi Era and Its Aftermath.” Prague served as the center of operations, and students took two trips of approximately two weeks each; to the East and West. While in Prague, students visited­­ the Jewish Quarter, the Prague Castle, Mayor Pavel Bém’s office, the Charles Bridge, the City Center, and took day trips to both Lidice and the Terezín concentration camp. On the trip to the East, students visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and memorial, the Kraków Ghetto, Oskar Schindler’s factory, Dresden’s historical sites, the Berlin Wall, several museums in Berlin, the Nuremberg Rally site, and the Documentation Center in Nuremberg. On the trip to the West, students visited the Mauthausen concentration camp and memorial, the historical sites of Salzburg, the Dachau concentration camp and memorial, Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest in Bavaria, Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein Castle, the village of Cesky Krumlov in South Bohemina region of the Czech Republic, and the Sudetenland.

Throughout the course, students were required to keep an intellectual journal and read six books on human rights, the Nazi era, and the aftermath of the Nazi era. In small groups of five or six, students led seminar discussions on the readings. Additionally, each student was responsible for writing a research paper on a related topic of interest. Undergraduate students registered for three courses from a diverse list of course options to receive nine hours of course credit.  Graduate students registered for two courses to receive six hours of graduate credit, although all students completed the same assignments.

As part of this presentation, pages from “The Nazi Era and Its Aftermath: A Documentary and Photographic Record” were shown (available in references). Quotations from student journals clearly illustrate that students were challenged by the material they encountered during the course. In their intellectual journals, students described course readings, class discussions, sites visited, and their experiences. The Nazi Era and Its Aftermath program illustrated how international study can combine effectively with the area of human rights.

Discussion:

Representatives from other institutions reported trouble convincing school administrators of the need for a human rights program.  Professor Maier-Katkin commented that it is possible to find donors, given the importance of human rights issues to many individuals and organizations.  He advised that student interest polls or student requests can convince an unsupportive administration to fund programs in the area of human rights.

• One participant asked if FSU provided any Human Rights classes in the Natural Sciences. Currently, FSU does not, but the session attendees agreed that the Natural Sciences could be involved in human rights education, particularly in areas of global resource management and the right to a habitable environment.
• Participants asked Professor Maier-Katkin how he and his colleagues kept students from becoming overwhelmed during six intensive weeks of human rights study, included multiple visits to concentration camps. Professor Maier-Katkin responded that it is important to provide down time, as well as encourage individual reflection. During the trip, students were required to keep intellectual journals. For the professors, this provided a way of measuring student learning, but for students, this also provided a time to reflect. Additionally, the students participated in recreational activities, allowing for group bonding without the stresses of emotionally difficult tours. Students went on a rafting trip, hiked in the Sudetenland, and toured castles and art museums. Film screenings and class discussions were held in the evenings. Finally, Professor Maier-Katkin recommended that students be selected carefully. For the most part, students will self-select, but by aiming this program towards honors students, the recruitment of committed and focused students is less challenging.
• One participant asked how the university measures the effects of the CAHR courses on students. Professor Maier-Katkin said that it is too early to measure long term effects, but that as students graduate with the human rights certificate and enter graduate programs, the CAHR will be able to measure effectively how its programs are developing students’ interests.
• Participants asked who funded the human rights class at FSU, and if the CAHR received money based on class enrollment. All the classes taught at FSU are taught through the various departments, so the funding and the rewards go to those departments. The honors certificate program was designed so that students may “double-dip” with credits:  a class can count towards both the honors certificate and their majors. This allows more students to pursue the human rights certificate without worrying about falling behind in their major requirements.

Recommendations:

For Individual Campuses

• Human rights scholarship appeals to potential donors, and presents research potential that is relevant to both state and federal agencies and private philanthropies. Therefore, universities should consider human rights activities, especially as a means of furthering capital campaigns and pursuing externally funded research.
• Human rights scholarship can be linked to the university’s service or community mission, providing involvement with the larger community as well as positive publicity.
• New courses can be created in a wide variety of disciplines that address human rights issues, invigorating both faculty members and students.

For The Reinvention Center

• A bibliography of resources relevant to scholarship in International Human Rights should be compiled and available for member institutions.

References/Resources:

Websites

Center for Advancement of Human Rights
http://www.cahr.fsu.edu/
426 West Jefferson St
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306
(850) 644-4550
Director: Terry Connan. J.D.
Also available as a contact: Daniel Maier-Katkin (dmaierkatkin@fsu.edu)

Publications

1. Ed. Brint, Chelsea, Nickens, Rachel and Maier-Katkin, Daniel. Selections from The Nazi Era and Its Aftermath: A Documentary and Photographic Record. 2008.

2. Session handouts:

Film Library
Reference Lists
Human Rights Courses at Florida State University
Nazi Era and Its Aftermath Course Descriptions
Student Paper Topics
Center for the Advancement of Human Rights Fact sheet