The 2011 SSEC annual conference was held at the Indiana Memorial Union on the beautiful campus of Indiana University (IU).

After an evening reception on June 29, SSEC members were treated to a content rich day on June 30.

IU Professor of history James Madison showed and discussed some of his “best” World War II documents and posters, many of which were controversial during the war.

 
James Madison

********************************************************************************

IU Professor of political science Marjorie Hershey presented an analysis of the 2010 mid-term elections and gave a very thoughtful analysis of her predictions for the election of 2012.  These predictions pleased the liberals in the audience.   

Marjorie Hershey

***********************************************************************************

It was a delight to have former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton, director of The Center for Congress at Indiana University, discuss the current U.S.Congress.  While Hamilton did not say that Congress is broken, he did cite some of the current problems, particularly the extreme partisanship. 

Former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton

***********************************************************************************

On July 1, conference attendees boarded a bus for a field trip to Indianapolis.  Retired IU geology professor Craig Moore provided insights into Indiana geology during the trip from Bloomington to Indianapolis.  The group visited the Indiana Museum of Art and the Indiana State Museum. 

Downtown Indianapolis

***********************************************************************************

On a less serious note, SSECers visited the Oliver Winery on the return trip and enjoyed tasting the wide variety of wines produced by the winery. 

Oliver Winery

***********************************************************************************

On our final conference day, July 2, Suzanne Helburn, Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of Colorado at Denver, gave an insightful presentation, “The Great Recession and Economics Education: Economic Illiteracy Revisited.”  Her primary concern was that today’s high school students do not learn the importance of fiscal and monetary policy and the need for concerted action during a recession

Suzanne Helburn

***********************************************************************************

Two presentations on SSEC projects concluded the conference.  Richard Van Scotter reviewed Colonial Williamsburg’s digital U.S. history course, The Idea of America.  The course is being distributed by Pearson Prentice Hall.  SSEC Board member John Hoge summarized the progress on digitizing the SSEC secondary social science methods text, Teaching the Social Sciences and History in Secondary Schools.  The text will be available for sale in January 2012.

***********************************************************************************

President Murry Nelson chaired the SSEC corporation meeting.  He called on IU professor Gerald Marker to present the Irving Morrissett award for excellence in social science education to conference organizer Fred Risinger.  Fred was both pleased and surprised to receive the award. 

Fred and Pegi Risinger

***********************************************************************************

While there was no formal evaluation of the conference, all indications were that the conferees were very happy with their conference experience. 

2011 Conference Group