Education

A Career or a Calling?

Gudgel spent the first eighteen years of his career teaching high school English, Humanities, and World Religions, the first ten at Lincoln Southwest High School, the final eight at Omaha North High Magnet School. At LSW, Mark taught a popular course on the literature of the Holocaust, as well as numerous independent study courses on genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. At North, he taugth a humanities course that focused on genocide in the twentieth century. While he was teaching, Gudgel held fellowships with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and Fund For Teachers, all focused on Holocaust and genocide education. Gudgel was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching in 2013 and continued his study of Holocaust education at the University of London, today UCL, in London, England and surrounding communities. Gudgel also worked for the USHMM for six years, and served as the executive director of the Educators’ Institute for Human Rights, which he cofounded with his colleague from the Holocaust Museum, Drew Beiter. As a college professor, Mark currently does a lot of teacher training on how to approach the Holocaust and conducts original research in the field. He is also currently engaged in preparing Yom Hashoah commemorations and other programming on his university campus in Omaha, and serves as a consultant for a variety of programs and institutions. You can view Mark’s TED talk on genocide education below. To request that Mark give a public presentation at your university or institution, please contact him through the web page.