An interlocking program to involve additional workshop providers for the ACMCU Outreach Program during AY 2018-2019 was Train the Trainers, conducted with a grant from the Mirza Family Foundation. The objective of the Train the Trainers Program was to ensure the continuity and expand the possibilities of the ACMCU professional development workshop program for teachers by cultivating experienced educators who can conduct workshops on Islam, World Religions and World History.

A training syllabus was developed with the ACMCU administration, including Dr. John Esposito and Dr. Jonathan Brown. The program began in January 2019, with acceptance of seven experienced educators who represent a range of ages, ethnicities, languages, and academic specialties, and five states. The training featured four in-person training sessions from March through July 2019. The sessions featured ACMCU faculty including Professors John Esposito, Tamara Sonn, Yvonne Haddad, John Voll, Jonathan Brown, and Dr. Susan Douglass, as well as a session with the Bridge Initiative team.

Trainees engaged with academic readings, curriculum frameworks, state and national standards documents, pedagogy, and current ACMCU Education Outreach content modules. Each trainee prepared a content module submitted with videos and digital lesson content. These capstone projects are posted on ACMCU’s YouTube channel as non-public videos at https://georgetown.box.com/s/rsz8mqoexi6jhs6cu98cz86jvjvddzhs.

During the program and after, trainees conducted professional development workshops independently and under ACMCU auspices during the 2018-2019 Academic Year. The trainees are Dr. Rabiah Khalil Abdullah, Roland Park Country School; Melissa Alkassir, ING (Islamic Network Group) MidWest; Aysha Azmat, Assessment Administrator for the National Assessment of Educational Progress; Sarrah Buker, Muslim school educator; Mohamad Mahdi Mohammadpour, doctoral student in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University; and Dr. Feryal Salem, American Islamic College in Chicago. ACMCU proposes to seek further funding to integrate these trainees into the Education Outreach program in the coming academic year, for the purpose of expanding its scope and reach.