Michael Feifel, a teacher at Lehighton Area High School, has been awarded a Buchwald Summer Fellowship by the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ohio. The center is a nonprofit provider of educational programs for U.S. history and government teachers, as well as high school and college students.

Middle and high school teachers chosen as Buchwald Summer Fellows receive the full cost of tuition, room, board and books to participate in a rigorous weeklong summer graduate course offered through Ashbrook's Master of Arts in American History and Government program, the nation's only MA degree program developed specifically for history and government teachers. Participants in the course earn two graduate credit hours from Ashland University."Ashbrook's Buchwald Summer Fellowship recipients study the ideas that motivated the people who have shaped our nation's history by reading what these individuals said and wrote at the time," said MAHG program Director Chris Pascarella."The fellows then engage in discussion-based seminars, led by nationally prominent faculty members distinguished for their teaching and scholarship, and engage with other teachers about the meaning and importance of the 'core documents' under discussion."The courses run throughout June and July. Course topics include the American Revolution, the Constitution Ratification Debate, the Civil War and Reconstruction, America During the Cold War, and others.The Buchwald Summer Fellowships are named in honor of Jim Buchwald, founder of the Mount Vernon, Ohio-based Ariel Corporation, which provided funding for the program in an effort to help the Ashbrook Center educate secondary school teachers in our country's founding principles.