Education Programs

The educational component of the William Joiner Center ranges from the international to the local as well as the traditional academic components at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Through the university's academic departments a number of courses exploring war and its consequences are available to students. A group of clusters has been developed to provide students with a better understanding of conflict in general and veterans' issues. An individual major in War and Social Consequences has also been added to the university's curriculum.

The center is currently developing a web-based curriculum site for high school courses on the war in Vietnam. Its annual Vietnam Institute and Vietnam Today Programs provide interested teachers, scholars, students, and veterans hands on experience in exploring the issues of the war and its consequences. Its Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship program (2000-2003) supported scholars exploring issues of post-war identity in the Vietnamese Diaspora. The new program (2004-2007), Culture, Art, Trauma, Survival, Development: Vietnamese Contexts will expand on the work of a previous cycle of fellowships “(Re)constructing Identity and Place in the Vietnamese Diaspora,” seeking to examine the roles culture and art have played in the contexts of postwar experiences of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people.