Teaching History From Black and Hispanic Perspectives

AUSTIN, TX -- A professor at Huston-Tillotson College has created a program that challenges honors students to look at Texas history and a few other subjects in a new way.

Three years ago, Dr. June Brewer began what is called the "Dos Culturas" (Spanish for "two cultures") program at the predominantly Black college in Austin, which also includes a sizable number of Mexican Americans in its student population. The program, consisting of one or two honors courses per semester and related field trips and activities, offers subjects from both an African-American and a Hispanic-American perspective. In most of the classes, material is presented by a teaching team comprised of one African-American and one Hispanic-American professor or lecturer.

The program, which Brewer and others believe to be unique in concept, is in the third year of a three-year grant provided by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Brewer said she is worried because the $300,000 grant is nearly gone and she hopes to be able to continue the program.

Brewer, a professor emeritus, whose title is director of Huston-Tillotson's multicultural honors program, came out of retirement to direct the program. She said she doesn't plan to quit teaching again if she can find more financial support for the Dos Culturas program. Brewer believes in the concept so strongly that she is now preparing to write several grant applications in hopes of securing funding to continue the program.

"I just spent $425 of my own money to go to a grantsmanship workshop. I'm going to get funded," she says with determination.

Brewer not only oversees the program but teaches a freshman composition course in which students begin examining the two minority cultures that have become closely intertwined in the Lone Star State. She also pairs teachers and students on field trips that take them to Mexico to experience Hispanic culture firsthand.