The Project for Historical Education is a collaboration between the UNC School of Education and History Department. A flourishing program in UNC’s History Department during the 1990s, PHE's activities ceased after 2002 due to funding problems. In the fall of 2006, the PHE was revived with the help of new financial support and a new collaborative plan that includes both the School of Education and the History Department. The PHE is now once again organizing programs for public school teachers on new approaches to historical research and pedagogy, stressing the importance of dialogue and conversation among UNC faculty, public school teachers, and future teachers. The goal is to strengthen and support historical education in North Carolina.
The PHE serves a number of overlapping objectives: (1) To counter student indifference to history by helping teachers remain intellectually vital, well-informed about “cutting-edge” historical research, and aware of stimulating new materials to use in the classroom. (2) To diversify the traditional study of history by introducing new information on various cultures, women, and once-excluded racial minorities, and to help teachers link recent multicultural perspectives to more traditional historical studies of political and social institutions. (3) To bridge the professional gap that often separates public school teachers from the sphere of university historians (and vice versa); the goal is to overcome the professional isolation on both sides of this professional divide through an on-going dialogue on historical education. (4) To contribute to the future strength of civic culture in North Carolina by encouraging student engagement with historical perspectives, debates, and information—all of which are essential for a democratic public culture.