Robert Poch

What motivates me in my work?

The exploration of challenging questions concerning human diversity is a strong motivating force in my teaching and research.  I enjoy examining how ideas and concepts regarding diversity emerge over time and what impact they have on how we include or exclude people within societies.  Most of all, I am motivated by watching how students develop personal interpretations of history, create their own identities in contemporary society, and identify how they will use their privileges and talents in service to others.

What can students expect from me?

Complete commitment to a genuine learning partnership within a multicultural learning environment where ideas are proposed, shared, debated, and tested through active engagement with subject matter and one another. Students can also expect that I will be prepared, enthusiastically engaged, and attentive to, and respectful of ideas and perspectives that differ from my own.

My research:

Combining my background in history, teaching, and higher education public policy, my research focuses primarily on the history of the early civil rights movement in the United States (with a particular focus on the period 1930-1954) and how public policies were influenced and formulated to create greater access to educational opportunity.  My most recent research focuses on the pedagogical approaches that prepared and enabled early civil rights attorneys to win landmark cases that eventually desegregated public schools. 

A primary goal of my research is to bring forward the stories and contributions of many civil rights advocates and leaders who remain largely unknown in U.S. history.  Further, I worked collaboratively with other colleagues in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning to investigate how college and university faculty can “engage diversity” within classroom settings to develop cognitive and intra/interpersonal skills necessary for individual, community, and professional success and advancement.

Specific research foci that I am exploring are guided by the following goals: 

• To discover how engagement with "history problems" through the use of archival primary source materials and related analytic questions can enhance historical interpretation and understanding among undergraduate students.
• To examine historically and share the policy contributions and strategies of mostly unknown early civil rights leaders and communities who created through multi-disciplinary perspectives arguments for equal educational opportunity.
• To understand how communities and organizations came together through principled and focused leadership to gather the information, resources, and learning tools necessary to make extraordinary advances in human rights including those in education.
• To explore the classroom content, teaching methods and materials, student assignments and examinations, and out-of-class academic experiences that produced large numbers of informed, dedicated, and effective civil rights advocates.
• To apply the historical lessons of the above to contemporary issues involving educational inequality and the policies that perpetuate such inequality.
• To apply historical and policy research findings on the advancement of human rights to class discussions, assignments, and undergraduate research opportunities.

Awards

• 2021 Article of the Year Award, Organization of Educational Historians
• 2014 Horace T. Morse - University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education.