Perpich News
Tory Peterson, Theater Instructor, Accepted for U of M’s Global Perspectives of Civics Fellowship
Tory Peterson, Theater Instructor
October 16, 2023
Congratulations to Tory Peterson, Theater Instructor, who was accepted for the University of Minnesota’s Global Perspectives of Civics Fellowship this past summer. The multi-year selective fellowship brings together six high school educators from Minnesota and six high school educators from Wisconsin to explore civic education, democracy (including threats to democratic processes), and human rights through a global lens while being introduced to change makers from around the world.
During the first summer of the fellowship in 2023, program fellows stayed on the East Bank campus at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for three days. During this first phase, educators focused on getting to know one another and building a strong, collaborative, professional learning community. Educators participated in sessions at the University of Minnesota with experts in the fields of human rights and education. Participants also explored human rights spaces in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and met with activists and social change makers.
“The fellowship looks at cultural and political topics in the world, through the art that is created, to voice various points of view of events occurring,” said Peterson. “This summer, we took a tour of all graffiti that was created after George Floyd’s murder and talked about how it was being documented and saved for future generations to use as discussion points for students and educators.”
The second phase takes place during the 2023-2024 school year, when all educators in the fellowship cohort will attend 2, two-hour virtual trainings each semester. Finally, in the summer of 2024, the fellowship cohort will again convene in person for three days on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Those selected for the fellowship will create and share lesson plans and units that integrate global content into civic education.
Tory Peterson has been an instructor at Perpich Arts High School since 1993. He has been a curriculum designer for Frameworks for Arts Curriculum Strategies and EdStar Curriculum Repository. Peterson has led theater and art/science workshops and presented at state and national conferences on classroom collaboration and interdisciplinary curriculum development. He received a B.A. in theater from Moorhead State University and M.A. in theater from Arizona State University. Peterson has been recipient of the Animating Democracy Grant, SURDNA Foundation Grant, and the Gilder Lehrman Teachers Institute. Tory Peterson has worked closely with Walker Art Center, creating student curriculum for their Out There performances, boundary breaking interdisciplinary performances from around the world.
The fellowship is sponsored by the Institute for Global Studies Title VI National Resource Center at the University of Minnesota, the Institute of World Affairs Title VI National Resource Center at the University Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, and the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota.