NCHC Place as Text Virtual Faculty Institute - Re-Reading Local Spaces

Welcome to the Re-Reading Local Spaces, a Place as Text Virtual faculty Institute sponsored by the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (NCHC) Place-as-Text Committee. This is a professional development opportunity for anyone involved in student learning and interested in the pedagogy of active and place-based learning. Since 1978, the overall strategies involved in City/Place as text have proven to serve a broad range of pedagogical objectives. These approaches begin with helping students and faculty to attend to (i.e., see, hear, smell, taste, touch) the world around them and then to begin to understand that all the aspects of perception involve interpretation. Both are necessary for any attempt at analysis and are prerequisites for understanding.

For you as a participant, this means several things. First, you will be placing yourself in the role of students who are acquiring observational skills even as they are fulfilling course requirements. Like students doing something new, you will sometimes feel excited and energized and other times feel frustrated and confused. Because time in each place is limited, you will be working very hard and expending a lot of energy.

Re-reading Local Spaces presents PAT in a flexible, hybrid, and even virtual space. Participants will develop their understanding of PAT strategies - Mapping, Observing, Listening, Reflecting - while they design ways to make PAT pedagogy work within their own context or setting. A new emphasis on multimedia platforms will be central to the Institute, providing participants with interdisciplinary experiences they may employ to document student learning in a variety of contexts. How does the intersection of history and current events impact how we interact with local spaces? How does technology influence or change our perceptions of place?

As you move through this exploration of territory perhaps familiar to you - the local - you will record your experiences and observations in writing, photographing, and using multimedia platforms. You will refer to maps others have created. Please know, however, what you are undertaking is a Mapping Exercise in the rawest sense: you should attend to your own perceptions and have your own experiences. Gradually you’ll produce your own map of the territory. Through interrogation, you will consider why your personal map is different from other maps. 

Logistic Details

Participants

Up to 25 registrants

Costs

Member price: $250 

Nonmember price: $500

Registration Deadline

The deadline to register for this event is June 17, 2026.

Tentative Itinerary

Please click here for the tentative itinerary.