Alumna Named New Mexico’s 2020 History Teacher of the Year

WNMU Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies Alumna and James Madison Memorial Foundation Fellow Amy Page, who was named New Mexico’s 2020 History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lerhman Institute of American History

© Western New Mexico University

Alumna Amy Page, ’16, was named New Mexico’s 2020 History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lerhman Institute of American History.

A nontraditional student who had spent a dozen years as a stay at home mom before returning to earn a bachelor’s got involved with her children’s Moriarty-Edgewood School District’s National History Day even though she was in school for elementary education. Once Page got into a classroom, her passion only grew. She eventually over the district’s We The People program and the honors programs. “But in order to teach dual credit classes, I needed a master’s degree,” she said.

After entering the WNMU Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies program, Page was accepted for a James Madison Memorial Foundation Fellowship, which provided $24,000 for her graduate school experience. “I wanted something in state yet online, which I felt was going to be conducive to the flexibility and the rigor I wanted. A lot of people don’t expect outstanding faculty or a rigorous program from rural universities but the MAIS program at WNMU does that quite well,” she said, noting that WNMU influenced how she teaches. “I shifted to project-based learning and really engaging students in collegiate-level research and analysis.”

Her emphasis on using primary sources was partly how Page earned the Gilder Lerhman Institute award, which came with a $1,000 prize and a collection of books and sources for her classroom.

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