San Francisco State University

San Francisco, California, 94132

Last updated on February 9, 2026
Grant awarded by
Library of Congress
Region
East
Organization Type
College/University
Congressional District(s)
11
Fiscal Year Of First Grant
FY 2006 [10/01/05 - 09/30/06]
Contributing Organization(s)
Organization description

SFSU is a major public urban university, situated in one of the world’s great cities. Building on a century-long history of commitment to quality teaching and broad access to undergraduate and graduate education, the University offers comprehensive, rigorous and integrated academic programs that require students to engage in open-minded inquiry and reflection. SFSU prepares its students to become productive, ethical, active citizens with a global perspective.

The Graduate College of Education (GCOE) at SF State is home to a dedicated group of faculty, staff, and students whose focus is on serving the students and families of the Bay Area, and whose commitments are to social justice and change for good. The GCOE’s undergraduate, credential, and graduate programs prepares professionals who consistently make a positive difference in education and in students’ lives and whose impact is meaningful and lasting. The oldest college on the campus, the GCOE was founded in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School, and became San Francisco State Teachers College in 1921. Those deep roots ground us in long-standing relationships with districts, clinics, agencies, and schools where our candidates connect with a diverse population of students and families, and where our alumni have long careers.

Project description

The Collaborative Local History and Action Civics program aims to connect middle and high school teachers and students from different regions of the country through the study and sharing of local history, issues, and events with primary sources from the Library of Congress. Teachers participate in cross-regional planning to discuss, learn, and develop materials and strategies for classroom collaborations. Students research local histories connected to national historical themes and issues. Through Zoom sessions, shared documents, and other digital platforms, classrooms of students present, discuss, compare and contrast their local histories. Students then collaborate in responding to or acting on contemporary issues and events within and across their communities.

The program, in part, seeks to connect teachers and educators already engaged in community history work. One need only to check out recent conference agendas from the National Council for Social Studies and the National Council for History Education to see that teachers and students across the country are engaging in local history. Our project seeks to facilitate cross-regional conversations between such history-social studies classrooms, starting last year with a pilot that brought together seventeen middle and high school teachers from the Boston and San Francisco Bay areas. To do so, we developed a conceptual framework along with curriculum tools and activities to support teacher and student collaboration across the program’s component parts.

TPS project focus
  • Curriculum
  • Teaching Materials
  • Workshops
Content focus
  • Civics
  • Geography
  • History
  • Civil Rights
Audience
  • Archivists
  • Classroom teachers
  • Community members
  • Students
  • University faculty
Level(s)
  • 6 - 8
  • 9 - 12
Population focus
  • African Americans
  • Asian Americans
  • LGBTQIA+
  • Low income
  • Native American/Indigenous
  • Urban
  • Women and girls
Organization Contact
San Francisco State University
bfogo@sfsu.edu
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