Some 200 Southern California public school teachers will attend the forum free of charge, courtesy of a special donation to the Holocaust Museum. The March event represents the first time CSUN will host the Teaching the Holocaust event.

"We feel privileged to partner with the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Southern California Teacher Forum," said Philip Rusche, dean of CSUN's Michael D. Eisner College of Education. "Teachers throughout the nation have praised the museum's 'Teaching the Holocaust' forums as an outstanding professional development opportunity."

Designed for secondary and pre-service teachers, the upcoming Holocaust Education forum will explore the content, methodologies and rationales for teaching the history of the Holocaust, placing special emphasis on literature and the use of technology.

Holocaust survivors will participate with teachers at special forum sessions, as will representatives of Los Angeles area Holocaust organizations, who will conduct programs and provide resources. The forum is open to the public and will take place in the Little Theater in Nordhoff Hall on the southwest corner of the campus at 18111 Nordhoff St. in Northridge. The conference begins each day at 8:30 a.m.

Among the scheduled speakers are Claudia Koonz of Duke University, who will discuss "The Nazi Conscience;" William Meinecke of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), who will talk about "The Realization of Ideology: An Overview of Holocaust History;" and Barry Van Driel of Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, who will talk about "Anne Frank and the Holocaust."

Building upon the three-day forum, CSUN's Jewish Studies Program this summer will offer a graduate-level course called "Teaching the Holocaust and Genocide" in Northridge's Roland Tseng College of Extended Learning. State Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education directors Sam and Carol Edelman of CSU Chico will teach the course, which will focus on how to teach the Holocaust in middle and high school courses.

A $10,000 grant from the 1939 Club, a philanthropic organization of Holocaust survivors, will support the pilot course, said Jewish Studies Program Coordinator Jody Myers.

In a related development, Myers said the Jewish Studies Program will introduce a new bachelor's degree in Modern Jewish Studies in fall 2005. "The system-wide B.A. will be the first undergraduate major in Modern Jewish Studies in either the CSU or UC systems," she said.

In offering the degree, CSUN joins a CSU-wide consortium including CSU Chico, San Diego State University, San Francisco State University and CSU Long Beach. Each consortium partner will accept courses for credit toward the Modern Jewish Studies degree from any of the consortium campuses. It is an option, Myers said, that works especially well for online courses.