GODFREY – In his 20 years as both an adjunct instructor at Lewis and Clark Community College and Superintendent of the Lewis and Clark State Historical Site in Hartford, Brad Winn has made it a goal to transform history into an experience.
“I love history,” Winn said. “The consistent feedback I get from students is on my enthusiasm for the subject. I just love teaching history. It’s important to me to bring that enthusiasm into the classroom. History doesn’t have to be boring, and sometimes it can be a challenge to convince people of that.”
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That spirit and desire to deliver immersive and personal experiences in his teaching has garnered attention and admiration from his colleagues, who nominated Winn as L&C’s first Illinois Community College Trustees Association (ICCTA) Adjunct Faculty Member Award nominee during this month’s spring inservice.
Each spring, the ICCTA awards recognize the state's finest community college alumni, faculty, and professional staff.
“If you walked into a class taught by Brad, you would see students laughing, engaged, and included,” said Honors College Coordinator Jen Cline, who wrote Winn’s nomination. “Brad finds a way to connect to each student personally. He knows each student’s name and learns
their interests and drives. When teaching honors students, he asks students to develop their own thoughts and ideas and connects students to the wider world through their own stories.”
Winn has taught history, humanities and computer literacy courses. He may be best known for his Honors College class, The History of Riverscapes, an interdisciplinary course that explores local, national and international history using the Mississippi River as its anchor. Students are directly connected to experts in their field and Winn directs class trips to historical sites.
Winn praises Cline for her work in helping to shape the successful honors course, finding innovative ways to bring history into the modern world, whether in-person or virtually.
“History of Riverscapes has been an unbelievable opportunity for me to teach,” Winn said. “There are people out there doing amazing work, and we get to connect them with students. It’s an amazing thing to be part of.”
Along with the L&C Honors College, Winn has worked with Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) in a grant to develop a digital humanities program to bring together SIUE students with L&C students. Through this work, L&C was awarded the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Humanities Connections Implementation Grant to begin courses in Fall 2022.
Winn’s impact also reaches out into the local community as a teacher for L&C’s College for Kids summer programming. The immersive experience for children includes everything from preparing their own meals and making candles, to keeping a journal, mending their uniforms, identifying various native plants/animals, and training in frontier skills.
“I love College for Kids because it’s a chance to reshape how young people perceive learning history,” Winn said. “They have a blast all week, and many times they don’t even realize they’re learning. It’s an amazing feeling to have a kid who says they think history is boring and be able to change their mind in that way.”
Cline, referencing a long list of contributions, said the impact Winn has made at the college can’t be understated.
“Brad has taken his knowledge and connections to the world of museums and historical sites, and made each of those places the classroom,” she said. “The Honors College family and L&C wouldn’t be the same without him.”
For more information on the L&C Honors College, contact Cline at jacline@lc.edu or visit www.lc.edu/honorscollege/.
For more information on College for Kids, visit https://www.lc.edu/c4k/.
ICCTA Award nominees from community colleges around the state typically come together for an awards banquet in the summer, and a single nominee is chosen as the statewide winner in each category. Visit https://www.communitycolleges.org/iccta-s-awards-and-scholarships to learn more.
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