By Sylvia Blair

History instructor Neil Dhingra was selected by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to attend a workshop on “The American Lyceum and Public Culture: The Oratory of Idealism, Opportunity, and Abolition in the 19th Century.”

The workshop was held May 20 through 26, 2007, at Northeastern University in Massachusetts.

The NEH invited community college educators nationwide to be considered for participation in the workshop through a competitive application process.

In the workshop, participants revisited a seminal period in American intellectual and social history, the age of the American Lyceum. It is one of the foremost adult educational movements, which occurred during a period when America was an “oratory culture” dominated by great speakers of the time, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Workshop participants were invited to visit authentic Lyceum sites to hear great orations brought to life on the stage, and study with other scholars the meaning and impact of this landmark American history era.

“Selection for a workshop of this caliber is a significant accomplishment for Mr. Dhingra. It is also a reflection of the fine faculty teaching at Carroll Community College,” said Dr. James Ball, vice-president of Academic and Student Affairs and dean of the faculty at Carroll.

“I was honored to be selected as a participant in the workshop,” Dhingra said. “I believe it will help me develop assignments for HIST 105, and conceivably, a course in the history of rhetoric” said Dhingra.

“Furthermore, the workshop will help me to continue to reflect on issues concerning communication in the early days of the Internet, along lines similar to my presentation on blogs during a faculty development session,” Dhingra said.

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