The Elizabeth Van Cleaf Institute
A Fellowship for K-12 Social Studies Educators
The museum professionals at the Monmouth County Historical Association (MCHA) of Freehold, New Jersey have teamed up with local education professionals through the Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission (MOESC) and Monmouth University to teach history through the sharing of specialized skills.
Our Story
Our story began when MCHA Archivist Dana Howell reached out to Dr. Wendy Morales, then serving as the K-12 Social Studies Curriculum Director for the Middletown school district in New Jersey. Dana was running the fledgling eduction program based on MCHA's award-winning exhibit on slavery in New Jersey, Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall, and was looking to not only engage students in the on-site experience, but create a standards-based digital program to supplement classroom learning in the most effective way possible. Dr. Morales immediately recognized the potential of such a collaboration, and reached out to Dr. Jason Fitzgerald and Dr. Rich Veit at Monmouth University to begin a successful partnership between the three organizations. It is from this partnership that the successful Elizabeth Van Cleaf Institute was created.
Meet The Team
Dr. Wendy Morales
Assistant Superintendent, Monmouth Ocean Educational Services Commission
Wendy Morales has been an educator for twenty-five years, beginning her career as a 6th grade teacher in the Newark Public School District. She earned a BA from The George Washington University, a MA from American Public University, and an Ed.D. from Monmouth University. She currently serves as assistant superintendent of Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission. Dr. Morales earned the Teacher of the Year award in her second year of teaching. After a rewarding five years in Newark, Dr. Morales accepted the role of middle school social studies teacher for the Middletown Township Public Schools where she was fortunate enough to serve as a fellow in the American Institute for History Education’s Teaching American History (TAH) Program. In 2014, she earned Teacher of the Year for the second time. As an early adopter of educational technology, Dr. Morales was accepted into the Google Certified Innovator Program and became a Google Certified Trainer soon after. She has worked in districts all over the country on increasing meaningful technology and personalized learning in the classroom. In 2015, Dr. Morales was accepted into the year-long Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State. Through this program, she developed a passion for global citizenship education and was fortunate enough to work with a partner teacher in the Republic of Georgia. In 2016, Dr. Morales was selected as a TED-Ed Innovative Educator and was named State of New Jersey Exemplary Secondary Educator (2017). Soon after, she was appointed Director of Social Studies and Technology K-12 in the Middletown Township Public Schools. In this role, she supervised over 100 teachers and specialists, co-developed dozens of curricula, and spearheaded important initiatives such as Future Ready Schools New Jersey and the district’s equity and inclusion initiative. Dr. Morales also serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Education at Monmouth University. She regularly presents at regional and national conferences and has had several academic articles published.
Dr. Jason Fitzgerald
Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
Monmouth University
A scholar of civic thinking, Dr. Fitzgerald brings his years of social studies teaching experience to explorations of youth civic engagement. Widely published, he collaborates with schools in New York and New Jersey, training teachers to facilitate action civics and inquiry-based social studies practices in their classrooms. Drawing on his experiences as a middle school social studies teacher in the diverse communities of Montgomery County, Maryland, Dr. Fitzgerald’s research explores the ways in which social studies is taught to marginalized populations. His civics-specific research interests have led him to the psychological studies of civic planning as an ill-structured problem category. With this work, he has helped to develop action civics curriculum for Generation Citizen, a national non-profit educational organization, and for young African Leaders as part of President Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellows program, part of the Young African Leaders Initiative; he has been Co-PI on over $500,000 of grant money from the United States Department of State, managed by IREX. Dr. Fitzgerald has used his research on historical and civic ways of thinking used when planning civic action to inform teacher professional development for teachers in local and national contexts. In his local and national professional development work, he compared these heuristics to the popular models of action civics and public policy analysis in order to provide teachers with nuanced ways of teaching civic practice to youth. He has also used this research to undergird civic leadership instruction for over 100 young African leaders, as part of the federal Mandela Washington Fellows program. This not only supported those leaders’ civic development, but some participants took the civic heuristic model home and used it to structure their own non-governmental organization work. Additionally, Dr. Fitzgerald’s work with pre-service social studies teachers has enabled research-practice partnerships that serve to support civics instruction in middle and high school settings. He brought together undergraduate and high school students to collaborate on civic projects, incorporating this research into his social studies methods classes. This integration enabled students to establish their commitment to the NCSS C3 framework in their professional portfolios and in their teaching. Additionally, Dr. Fitzgerald helped synthesize civics education research to inform Ford Foundation funding directions. He has served on the Board of Directors for Generation Citizen and on the board of the New York State Council for the Social Studies.
Dr. Rich Veit
Professor of Anthropology
Monmouth University
Richard Veit is Professor of Anthropology and Interim Dean of the School Of Humanities And Social Sciences at Monmouth University. He received his B.A. from Drew University in 1990, his M.A. in Historical Archaeology from the College of William and Mary in 1991 and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. In 2007 he was the recipient of Monmouth University’s distinguished teacher award and in 2012 he received Monmouth University’s Donald Warnecke Award for outstanding university service. At Monmouth he teaches courses on archaeology, historical archaeology, New Jersey history, Native Americans, and historic preservation. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles and reviews and five books including Digging New Jersey’s Past: Historical Archaeology in the Garden State (Rutgers Press 2002), New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones History in the Landscape (co-authored by Mark Nonestied, Rutgers Press 2008), New Jersey: A History of the Garden State (co-authored with Maxine Lurie, Rutgers Press 2012), Historical Archaeology of the Delaware Valley (co-edited with David Orr, U. Tennessee Press 2014) and The Archaeology of American Cemeteries and Gravemarkers (co-authored with Sherene Baugher, U. Florida Press, 2014). Dr. Veit’s first book, Digging New Jersey’s Past, received awards from the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office, New Jersey Academic Studies Alliance, and the New Jersey Center for the Book at Rutgers University. Two of his books, Digging New Jersey’s Past and New Jersey: A History of the Garden State are listed on the New Jersey State library’s 101 Great New Jersey books list. He serves on the New Jersey Historical Commission and on the boards of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, Crossroads of the American Revolution, and the Archaeological Society of New Jersey. He is the President of the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference. His work research has been featured on NPR, in Archaeology Magazine and at TEDx Navesink in 2014.
Bernadette Rogoff
Director of Collections
Monmouth County Historical Association
Bernadette Rogoff has worked as a curator in the museum field for more than thirty years. After working at the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Hudson River Museum, Rogoff began working for the Monmouth County Historical Association in 1992. She has researched, designed, and implemented over 45 changing exhibitions on topics ranging from the American Revolution to fashion history. Rogoff researched and produced the first exhibition celebrating the work of early 19th century New Jersey portrait artist Micah Williams in 2013. She has lectured and presented at Colonial Williamsburg, the American Folk Art Museum, Princeton Art Museum, Historic Morven, and several New Jersey History Conferences. Rogoff is a hands-on historian, and has demonstrated 18th century skills including spinning, weaving, sewing, and basket weaving for the Association at numerous events. Rogoff also manages the Colonial Kitchen Garden at Covenhoven House, the Association’s Freehold historic site.
Joe Zemla
Senior Curator
Monmouth County Historical Association
Joe Zemla is the Senior Curator of the Monmouth County Historical Association, which operates five historic houses and maintains a museum collection of nearly 40,000 objects. After graduating Rutgers with a BA in American Studies, he completed a post-baccalaureate program at Harvard in Museum Studies. His current work focuses heavily on New Jersey's often overlooked history of slavery, using various research methods and interpretive methodologies to bring this narrative into sharper focus. He recently co-curated MCHA's exhibit "Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall," which was awarded the New Jersey Historical Commission’s 2022 Giles R. Wright Award for excellence in African American History. This exhibit is based on archival documentation as well as evidence of material culture uncovered in the former enslaved living quarters of the 18th century home. Joe has recently presented these findings and related research at events hosted by the New Jersey Historical Commission, Monmouth University, the Society for Historical Archeology, and the New Jersey Historic Trust. He is also a New Jersey representative for the Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI).
Dana Howell
Digital Education Archivist
Monmouth County Historical Association
Dana Howell is the Digital Education Archivist at the Monmouth County Historical Association. She earned her BA from Rutgers University and is currently earning her MA in American History at Gettysburg College. She previously served as the MCHA Research Archivist for several years, during which time her focus was also education-driven. She created the Digital Diversity Oral History Project with her colleague, Joe Zemla, to proactively document the history of our underrepresented communities, and began the Remembering Covid-19 project, one of the earliest pandemic documentation projects launched in the country. MCHA's new digital education companion to the award-winning exhibit Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall makes the fascinating exhibit content accessible for students, and she is currently working on a curriculum-based high school resource to spotlight the rich and amazing history of Monmouth County, bringing the best of the MCHA archives to students across the state.
Cohort Two:
July 31-Aug 3, 2023
Elizabeth Van Cleaf was born into slavery at Marlpit Hall in 1806. The teaching institute honors her memory.
This program will provide educators with background knowledge and age-appropriate strategies for using primary sources and inquiry learning to teach local hidden history.
Topics include:
Colonial Era History: Artifacts and Instruction
Covenhoven House, Freehold
Indigenous Peoples: Archaeology and Presence, Then and Now
Parker Homestead, Little Silver
Rise to Revolution: Archives and Battlefields
Monmouth Battlefield, Freehold Area
Slavery in NJ: Origins and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice
Marlpit Hall & Taylor Butler House, Middletown
Cohort One of the EVC Institute
Our Method
Here is a look back at Cohort One of the EVC Institute. The topic was Whispers of the Enslaved: Teaching History Through A Partnership, and provided educators with the tools to feel confident teaching the sensitive topic of slavery.
Exhibit Tour
The first step was to have the teachers tour the exhibit. In each room of the 18th century home, they encountered a representation of one of the seven enslaved individuals who had once resided at Marlpit Hall. Through primary source documentation, they learned the stories of these people, and what life may have been like for them there. They also gained an understanding of the institution of slavery in the North through the curators' research and unique discoveries in the slave quarters above the kitchen.
Guest Lecturers
Guest lecturers helped to blend the techinical aspects of the Institute with fascinating career and life experiences. Dr. Rich Veit introduced the fellows to the wonders of an archaeological dig, and to the significance of some of the artifacts retrieved from the grounds of Marlpit Hall. Dr. Hettie Williams gave the fellows insight into the study of history, particularly as it pertained to African Americans in New Jersey, and the ways the information is interpreted and taught at the university level. Dr. Graham Russell Hodges, renknowned author of the book Slavery and Freedom in the Rural North, discussed his process for researching the little known topic of slavery in the North twenty years ago, and the significance the information still retains today. Professor Gilda Rogers gave a fun and informative presentation on the African origins of what has come to be known as soul food today, and the importance of understanding and remembering the legacy of the enslaved in the cuisine many of us eat every day.
Graham Russell Hodges , attending by Zoom
Professor Gilda Rogers
Dr. Hettie Williams
Dr. Rich Veit
Curriculum Experts
Dr. Morales and Dr. Fitzgerald gave the fellows a refresher on the 2020 NJ Curriculum Standards, and the reasons why these standards are in place. They explained the benefits of using the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) to focus on the core of the instructional design process, and demonstrated how to create an effective IDM. Dr. Morales and Dr. Fitzgerald walked the learners through the "hows" and "whys" of each step, instilling confidence along the way and thereby making the process much less daunting.
Museum Professionals
Exhibit curators Joe Zemla and Bernadette Rogoff brought a behind-the-scenes museum perspective to the fellows starting with a personal curator-led tour of the exhibit followed by a presentation on Zemla's discovery of artifacts beneath the floorboards of the slave quarters at Marlpit Hall. A discussion of the primary source-based research for the exhibit followed, in which fellows were given a glimpse into the process of how the curators built the biographies of these long-forgotten individuals using information found in the MCHA archives and beyond. In the course of the presentation, fellows learned to analyze and interpret the primary source documents used in the exhibit, followed by a hands-on activity led by Dana Howell to put those skills into practice using local runaway and sale ads from 18th and 19th century newspapers.
Resources
Digital Exhibit Resources
These free, standards-based digital resources make the exhibit accessible for those schools which are unable to visit due to financial or transportation constraints. They are also excellent classroom tools for those teachers who have visited the exhibit with their students and would like to continue to work with the content in the classroom. The resources scale the exhibit content to the appropriate level and offer cross-curricular standards-based questions and activities to engage the students in a variety of skills based within the framework of primary source analysis, including inference, arts interpretation, music, and creative writing. Differentiated learning strategies can easily be employed using the various visual components included in the material. The interface was designed specifically with classroom usage in mind, and is therefore only viewable on a laptop or PC. The mobile view is not conducive to the design and has therefore been disabled.
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Instructional Materials
These instructional materials were presented to the fellows over the course of the Institute.
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Recommended Resources
These resources were recommended to the fellows by the presenters to enhance their continued education.
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