Monday, August 19, 2019

Andrew Boge, a second-year doctoral student in Communication Studies, had the opportunity to participate in the inaugural class of the Humanities for the Public Good summer internship program, generously funded by the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. Throughout the summer, Andrew worked with the African American Museum of Iowa as a program researcher to investigate the ethical dimensions of slavery education and draft preliminary program designs for an underground railroad education program geared towards high school students. He was able to use his graduate humanities training for public-facing commitments while also having the opportunity to explore careers outside of the professoriate.

The internship was a valuable experience for Andrew to expand his networks beyond the campus and the academy into public cultural and historical institutions. Andrew worked with museum educators, faculty members, and educators across the state and around the country, in addition to visiting sites such as the State Historical Museum of Iowa in Des Moines and the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago. His research aimed to develop a coherent pedagogy for the museum to inform the development of future education programs. He was then able to apply his research towards developing education program designs that engaged the fraught historical narrative of the underground railroad.

Andrew was able to hone his graduate research while serving the AAMI as an Obermann Public Good Fellow. One of his current projects involves parsing out the rhetorical dynamics of playing with racism. Through his research on slavery simulations and experiential learning at the nexus of slavery education, Andrew had a chance to operationalize his conclusions and further nuance his positions on the implications of gamifying racism.

As a result, Andrew’s graduate work benefited greatly by having the space to practice making academic conversations legible for public audiences, learning about how to adopt decolonial and anti-racist pedagogical penchants, exercise developing curriculum informed by his research background, and rehearse engaging with educators in public spaces. Through the internship program, Andrew used his graduate education for purposes outside of academia.  

To read more, check out two blog posts he wrote and a video that summarizes the purpose of his work outside of the academy.