The Transformative Power of Civic Engagement

This VPAL Signature Event is brought to you by Harvard’s Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and the Harvard Summer School, in conjunction with the Harvard Alumni Association.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning historian, educator, and human rights activist who has taught on Harvard's faculty since 2005. The adopted only son and grandson of public school teachers and factory workers, Tim currently holds a joint appointment in the undergraduate honors program in History and Literature, the Graduate School of Education, and the Kennedy School of Government, where he is Core Faculty at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He is also Academic Director emeritus and now Stanley Paterson Professor of American History in the Boston Clemente Course, a free college course for lower-income adults in Dorchester, where he has taught since its founding in 2001. A noted historian of politics and social movements, he is the author or editor of five books from the New Press, including the forthcoming Stonewall's Children: Living Queer History in an Age of Liberation, Loss, and Love. Honored multiple times for his teaching, including twice as one of the Harvard Crimson's "Professors of the Year," Tim has also devoted his life to public service and social justice. To give just two examples, Tim was the founding director of Harvard's Alternative Spring Break Church Rebuilding Program and a founding member of Barack Obama's National LGBT Leadership Council.
Joining Tim is Gretchen Brion-Meisels, a lecturer in the Prevention Science and Practice Program at the Graduate School of Education. Her research seeks to explore partnerships between youth and adults that support both individual and collective development. She is particularly interested in using Youth Participatory Action Research to investigate and reform student support efforts, as well as to build positive school climate. Gretchen has participated in a variety of research projects including investigations of: adolescents' perspectives on schooling and community-based work, social emotional learning in schools, holistic student support systems, and the intersections of bullying and discrimination in prevention research and practice. Her courses focus on supporting positive youth development, creating loving educational spaces, and partnering with youth in educational research and practice.