2022 Educational Leadership Grants
The Gregory School
Tucson, AZ
Friday Exploration Program
Fridays at The Gregory School are different. On Fridays, rather than holding regular classes, all Gregory School students and faculty engage in a series of short, specialized, directed projects, designed to introduce students to a wide range of applied ideas, disciplines, and real-world problems. Friday explorations are a time of learning and discovery based on the passions, interests, and goals of both students and teachers. Topics are chosen with meaningful purpose, and students select those explorations that will deepen and enrich their life skills and academic repertoires.
Grant Amount: $250,000
Match: 1:1
University Liggett School
Grosse Pointe, MI
Place-Based Education
Place-based education has the power to reshape learners’ relationships with the world around
them. They can learn about the broad themes and major events in history through local stories,
experiences, and places that are meaningful and relevant to their own lives. University Liggett
School has created a program that teaches students about the humanities through a place-
based lens: instead of a variable focus, students learn the history and culture of the United
States through the lens of our local community, which is Detroit and the Great Lakes region.
This approach has led our students to become more inquisitive, proactive, and engaged in their
learning about the world around them.
The Edward E. Ford Foundation’s Educational Leadership Grant will allow University Liggett
School to share the full scope of this approach, from planning to implementation in and around
the classroom and community, to learners across the country. The grant will support the
formation of a national institute on place-based humanities education. This institute will expand
upon Liggett’s current immersive, place-based professional development opportunities for
educators, as well as offer opportunities and incentives for students around the country to dig
deeply into the stories of their own communities through a national podcast competition and
quarterly peer-reviewed journal. The grant will also allow University Liggett School to continue to
innovate locally with place-based programming, incorporating successful innovations into our
national workshops.
Grant Amount: $250,000
Match: 1:1
Mid-Pacific Institute
Honolulu, HI
GlobalX
As part of Mid-Pacific’s Center for Advancing Education in Honolulu, Hawai’i, the Global Exchange Academy (GlobalX) is an online hub for virtual learning that will benefit students in Hawaii (public, private, charter and neighbor island). Informed by Deeper Learning principles, Hawai'i learners will benefit by having an island-based online course provider, offering customizable solutions to sustain and supplement on-campus learning through its courses, curriculum, and workshops with opportunities that connect learners with our unique place, culture and community. Virtual classrooms eliminate geographic barriers to participation, allowing for a mix of students throughout the islands and in rural or remote communities. In this way, GlobalX provides an opportunity for Mid-Pacific to perpetuate, beyond its physical campus, the spirit of geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity upon which it was founded.
The E.E. Ford Foundation grant will catalyze the expansion of the program, allowing the strategic expansion of the course catalog and human resources necessary to ensure the quality design and deployment of deeper learning classes. This includes hiring needed staff to ensure student and teacher support, satisfaction and success from registration to course completion. Partnership with our sister organization, Kupu Hou Academy, experts in Deeper Learning professional development and curriculum design, will ensure that GlobalX courses are designed to be place-based and student-centered and meet state credit requirements.
Grant Amount: $250,000
Match: 1:2