CURRICULUM • The Federal Courts: A Civic Education • ICMPA created a website for the Federal Judges Association, the Federal Magistrate Judges Association, and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The Federal Courts website focuses on the US Federal Courts and the national issues these courts address. It includes links to selected materials for use by judges and other presenters in educating the public about the judiciary’s crucial role as a coequal third branch of government dedicated to the fair and impartial administration of the law.
The materials illuminate the critical role of the judiciary in safeguarding American freedoms, and the corresponding importance of judicial independence — the courts’ ability to decide disputes impartially, without fear of direct or indirect social, economic or political reprisal. See here for a summary of the site.
CURRICULUM • Teaching Law, Justice & Human Rights • With support from the Open Society Foundation, ICMPA, in conjunction with the Salzburg Global Seminar, launched an initiative to give journalism students worldwide a deeper understanding of international law, justice and human rights and to teach those students the skills to identify key stories and appropriate sources.
Recognizing the critical role journalists play in conflict and peace, this project’s aim is to develop, pilot and evaluate model university curricula for reporting on international criminal justice events, issues and institutions. See here for a summary of the site.
CURRICULUM • “Let There Be Sight” — A Journalism Course about ‘Seeing’ — By Students, for Students • Students in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park, in coordination with ICMPA created a website to give journalism students worldwide a deeper understanding of the power of visual media. The site is intended to serve as a model curriculum for a course on “Seeing.”
The website the students created is the backbone of a prospective course to help students consider how essential “seeing” is to the way we understand our world, the news and even ourselves. It is written by students, for students. See here for a summary of the site.
PROJECT • Where Were You? Students’ Stories of the Boston Marathon Bombing • In a media literacy class at the University of Maryland, College Park, students wrote of how they learned of the Boston Marathon bomb blasts on Monday, April 15, 2013.
One week and one day after the bombing, students were asked to relate the story of how they heard the news. They were asked if media played a role in how they learned of the attack – and all the events that followed, including the Friday lockdown in the Boston metropolitan area and the final capture of the surviving suspect in Watertown, Massachusetts. The writing exercise asked the student to consider the importance of media records of events as well as the value of personal recollections of them. See here for a summary of the site.
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