RESOLUTE Weekend in Duluth

The St Louis County Historical Society and the Veterans Memorial Hall in downtown Duluth, MN hosted (April 29, 30 & May 1) the traveling exhibit - RESOLUTE: MN Stories of 9/11 and the War. The exhibit was developed by the Minnesota Military and Veterans Museum and funded, in part, by the MN Department of Veteran Affairs (Support our Troops) and the MN Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

The video is courtesy of Kero Creative (Duluth, MN).

RESOLUTE Weekend in New Prague

RESOLUTE Weekend in Mankato

MN State University Mankato Explores American’s Longest War by Kyle Ward, Director of Social Studies Education

Last spring, I was struck by how young the prospective new class of college students looked as they toured the campus. Talking with my current students and seeing this potential batch of new ones, it dawned on me that almost every traditional student on our campus had little to no recollection of the events of 9/11. What they know of 9/11 comes textbooks, Hollywood movies or family and friends who are old enough to recall that fateful day. While their personal memories are almost non-existent, every one of these students are living in a world defined by the tragic events of that day and the world it created. With this appreciation, it was an easy decision to bring the Military & Veterans Museum’s Post-9/11 exhibit to the Mankato Campus. I wanted to help our student body learn more about these events and Minnesota’s connection to them. While this initial decision was simple, the remarkable ripple effects it had for our university would have been difficult to predict: MSU has a number of majors connected to the events surrounding 9/11. We were able to specifically target programs such as our Social Studies Education, History, Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement, the ROTC, Political Science, International Relations, Psychology, Sociology, Ethnic Studies, K-12 Education, and the list goes on. This exhibit experience gave academic programs the opportunity to teach our students as well as to have discussions that are relevant to their fieldsof interest. In preparation for the exhibit’s arrival, MSU reached out to the New York 9/11 Museum. This was done with the hope that they might send some curriculum materials that could be shared with future Social Studies teachers. Instead (to our surprise) the 9/11 Museum Education Team offered to test run a new pre-service (college) program at MSU. This resulted in an educators’ workshop in which a number of future teachers from campus and educators from our area, showed up and participated. During their time on campus, the 9/11 Museum representatives suggested that Mankato apply to be a test site to premiere their new film which featured survivors and explained to a new generation of Americans what happened that day and the impact it has had on our world. Through a partnership AMC Theaters, the university was able to host area high school students to view the film and explore the traveling exhibit on Friday, September 9.

Made possible, in part, by a grant from the Minnesota Department of Veteran Affairs. 

RESOLUTE: MN Stories of 9/11 and the War is made possible, in part, by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund using sales tax revenue resulting from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy amendment created through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov 4, 2008.