Eleesha Tucker
For the last ten years, I have established and directed the education programs of two Washington, D.C. history and civic education organizations, the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati and the Constitutional Sources Project. The Society of the Cincinnati is the oldest patriotic organization in the United States and now promotes the memory of the American Revolution, including the establishment of our founding ideals and civic responsibilities. The Constitutional Sources Project was founded to bring greater access to the historical records of the creation, ratification and amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It aims to increase understanding, facilitate research, and encourage discussion of the U.S. Constitution.
Administration
In my role as the education director of these organizations, I developed the annual strategic plan with educational objectives, content development roadmap, event calendar, and teacher programming to expand public awareness, provide teacher education, and increase the impact of the mission. I led a team of eleven staff members to develop and implement six annual teacher seminars, a week-long residential professional development program with a special collections research focus. I outlined and managed annual education budget allocation within broader $3 million operating budget of the organization and monitored yearly progress against the budget. I also recruited, trained and supervised 150+ undergraduate and law student volunteers across the country to review, proofread and check links to thousands of digitized historical documents for online publication.
Strategic Planning
In my current role as the Director of the Utah 3Rs Project, I am exploring the feasibility of establishing evergreen professional development in Utah for teachers and school administrators on the legal and religious literacy required by the First Amendment. With information gathered in this 2020 exploration, I will lead the strategic planning process with stakeholders.
Fundraising
I worked in collaboration with colleagues at the American Revolution Institute to raise the $3 million operating budget of the major historical cultural institution. This includes communicating to donors about education programming and cultivating a key relationship to raise $1 million to endow my position in a bequest.
Program Development
Two different Washington, D.C. based history-education nonprofit organizations recruited me to establish and grow their education programs. I engaged multiple audiences and mapped out seasonal museum public program offerings including scholarly lectures, children’s programs, community events, and exhibition highlights. I also established teacher professional development programming, including researching and writing the content, designing the learning experiences, providing some of the instruction and managing all of the logistics. I created and managed a traveling trunk program for classrooms that emphasized ethnic, class, and geographic diversity in the navies during the American Revolution and the Continental Army, emphasizing George Washington’s challenges as commander-in-chief of a volunteer army. This program has impacted thousands of students. I produced an online lecture series with distinguished scholars of early American history and developed and administered online programs to educate middle and high school students in multiple states who could not personally visit Washington, D.C. I designed and produced children’s programs including a week long simulation day camp in which participants learn about the hardships and triumphs of ordinary people in the eighteenth century. I also co-developed a course for school administrators and teachers on the foundations of religious liberty in the United States.