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CHSSP Executive Director, Dawniell Black, and Deputy Director, Beth Slutsky, recently sat down with UC Davis Chancellor Gary May for a Face to Face conversation.  Take a look at the article below and view the interview.

This article was originally published on the UC Davis News & Information page

This article was originally published at Ten Strands: Connecting Education, Environment, and Community

The CHSSP is excited to welcome Sareena Crawford as the 2026-27 Marchand Public Engagement Intern.  Sareena Crawford is a fourth-year PhD student in History with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research at the University of California, Davis. She is currently working on a dissertation that is a social history of Black kingroups and formerly enslaved people in northern California with a focus on Black women as facilitators of racial uplift in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The California History–Social Science Project (CHSSP) has been awarded a prestigious American History and Civics Education—National Activities Grant from the U.S. Department of Education for our new initiative, Foundations of Freedom: Strengthening Civic Learning in Schools.

This piece was originally posted to the UC Davis College of Letters and Science Magazine

Geraldine Portica might have known the risks every day when she wore a dress. In a 1917 portrait, she wears a dress and a wide-brimmed hat. She stands with one hand on her hip as her other hand extends the loose fabric of her skirt as if to show its cut.

As teachers begin the 2025-26 school year, the California History-Social Science Project is proud to announce that there are four new inquiry sets that teachers may now use to teach Middle Eastern and Arab American History:

Happy Pride!

While the Trump administration has continued in its campaign to expunge queer people and their histories from federal websites and monuments in recent months, this year’s Pride Month celebrations show that the LGBTQ+ community will not be quietly erased or sidelined. Celebrating the history of trans and queer resistance is more important than ever, and Professor Wendy Rouse of San Jose State University has written an excellent new blog on the subject for Pride Month. 

“We have been here before and we have survived.” This popular phrase is once again making its rounds on social media. It is an important reminder of continuity in history. But in teaching history, we often focus much more on oppressive systems while neglecting the stories of people who survived them. This is especially relevant in our present moment of virulent attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. It is an important time to reflect on how we as history educators teach about how past people persisted and resisted during times of intense oppression.

Originally posted on UC Davis: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion  

A historic collaboration between the UC Davis Department of History, Middle East/South Asia Studies Program, and the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP) is helping bring academically grounded lessons about Middle Eastern history into K-12 classrooms—at a time when teachers say the need for context and accuracy has never been greater.

In 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom approved Assembly Bill No. 800, which designates the first week of May as “Workplace Readiness Week” in California high schools. AB800 requires that all California eleventh and twelfth-grade students be taught their rights in the workplace. This type of instruction is incredibly important.