Lake Champlain Maritime Museum & Research Institute (LCMM) has received $600,000 from the Hoehl Family Foundation. With this generous gift, LCMM has created the Robert & Cynthia Hoehl Memorial ‘Education for All’ Fund. “The Hoehl Family Foundation Board is thrilled to make this significant gift to honor the legacy and long-standing traditions of LCMM, while supporting the strategic and exciting new educational goals that LCMM has set for the future,” said Laura Latka of the Hoehl Foundation. “The Foundation Board prioritizes quality education and providing equal access and opportunity to all, and this gift will help support LCMM in achieving both.”
“This gift is transformative for us,” said LCMM Co-Executive Director Joyce Cameron. The Hoehls’ generosity gives us the added bandwidth to accomplish our ambitious educational goals as we continue to advance our mission to preserve and share the heritage of the Lake Champlain region by connecting its past, present and future.”
Inspired by decades of valuable archaeological research, traditional boatbuilding and on-water explorations, LCMM’s Board and staff have recently embarked on a strategic direction to expand as a vital educational resource through school partnerships and tuition-based programs. “Lake Champlain Maritime Museum has become one of the leading Expanded Learning Opportunity Providers in our region,” said School Liaison Matt Witten. “This means that schools in our area look to us to engage their students in a wide array of adventurous, project-based, and rigorous learning experiences. School reform has placed this kind of personalized learning at the top of the priority list, and we are better poised to meet students’ needs with this robust support from the Hoehl Family. Skills that the students learn here help ready them for the working world, stoke their love of learning, and can count as credit toward graduation.”
LCMM’s new educational transformation includes a growing catalog of college-accredited programs offered in partnership with Castleton University. Examples of these higher-education courses are the Underwater Archaeology Field School, professional development graduate courses for teachers, hybrid ecology courses and a GAP semester for students.
LCMM is currently enrolling elementary, middle- and high-school teachers in several professional development courses: “Archaeo-Teach,” a summertime week-long primer on bringing field archaeology to the classroom; “Presenting Abenaki Culture in the Classroom,” a full-day Summer Educators’ Workshop offered in partnership with the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association and Flynn Theater; and, in the fall, “Artifacts and Institutes” led by Harry Chaucer of Castleton University, who will focus on how teachers can use primary sources to guide students to develop transferable skills via personalized learning.