Understanding the
women’s suffrage movement

Grant brings story into Michigan classrooms
A National Endowment for the Humanities grant is funding a Central Michigan University faculty member’s goal to educate Michigan residents about the women’s suffrage movement.

CMU teacher education and professional development faculty member – and first-time grant writer – Shane Cavanaugh received a $56,667 grant for her faculty humanities workshop.

The grant, “Winning the Vote: The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States,” is a “We the People” project that is designed to encourage and strengthen the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture.

In part, the grant has helped to bring together Michigan social studies teachers to explore women’s suffrage and will eventually result in a traveling exhibition.

Educators participate in workshop
Twenty-five educators and future educators recently participated in a weeklong women’s suffrage workshop. Participants included current K-12 teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate students from CMU and Michigan State University.

The workshop was hosted at the Michigan Women’s Historical Center in Lansing and included presentations by visiting scholars, readings from the time period, and an examination of artifacts.

“This was a wonderful partnership between CMU and the Michigan Women’s Historical Center,” Cavanaugh said. “Michigan played a big role in the suffrage movement and this was an opportunity to explore that rich history as well as offer some new ways of teaching it.”

Project leads to traveling exhibit
Each participant now is required to work on an individual project that will be used as part of the group’s traveling exhibition. The exhibit will appear in each of the schools participating in the workshop before coming to CMU.

Another project highlight for Cavanaugh was working with her sister Katie, the associate director of the Michigan Women’s Historical Center.

“It was really fun for the both of us,” Cavanaugh said.

To learn more about the Michigan Women’s Historical Center and the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame visit the Web site www.michiganwomenshalloffame.org.

With the success of her first grant, Cavanaugh now is looking to future opportunities. She just completed an application titled “We Can Do It: The Changing Roles of Women in World War II.”

Shane Cavanaugh, a CMU teacher education and professional development faculty member, received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to help educate Michigan residents about the women’s suffrage movement. Cavanaugh used some of the grant funding to cohost a weeklong educational workshop at the Michigan Women’s Historical Center in Lansing.