Martin-Springer Institute
The Martin-Springer Institute is a leading institution in Arizona committed to learning from the past and engaging with the present. Our public educational programs and scholarly endeavors are based on the principles of intercultural understanding and dialogue.
Our Mission:
The Martin-Springer Institute attends to the experiences of the Holocaust in order to relate them to today’s concerns, crises, and conflicts. Our programs promote the values of moral courage, empathy, resilience, reconciliation, and justice. Founded by Doris, who survived the Holocaust, and her husband Ralph Martin, the Institute fosters dialogue on local, national, and international levels.
What we do:
Looking at the history and legacy of the Holocaust, we observe that the seeds for destructive ideologies lie in fermenting social mistrust, dismantling democratic traditions, abolishing civility, and erecting systems of discrimination, violence, and terror. Today, social conflicts continue to threaten and harm communities, locally and globally.
What can be done? Education plays a crucial role in offering antidotes to forces that tear at the social fabric of communities. We engage students, educators, scholars, activists, community members on local, regional and national and international levels.
Martin-Springer Institute engages in many public facing activities in order to learn from the past and engage with the present. Our goal is to create of environments of care and compassion based on empathy and open communication.
Public Programs:
- January 27 annual speaker series
- Digital
- Traveling & permanent exhibits
- Collaborations with like minded organizations
- Commemorative events
- Film screenings
- Community outreach
Student Projects:
- student faculty research teams
- study tours
- summer research stipends
- internships
- independent study credits
Professional Development for Educators
- annual two-day seminars
- reading groups
- free teaching resources
- consulting
- continuing education lectures
- funding for field trips
Research Activities
- national & international symposia
- national 7 international lectures
- post-doc fellowships
- academic networking
- publications
- faculty reading groups
Capacity Building for Organizations
- grant-writing
- fundraising
- building partnerships
- advisory councils
- community engagement
- marketing
Our programs seek to accomplish many discreet goals in pursuit of our mission:
- raise awareness of the traumatic scope of the Holocaust and its continuous impact on contemporary society
- study the sources of conflict and investigate models of conflict-resolution
- address the social and moral repair of wounded communities and individuals
- teach alternatives to discrimination and stigmatization
- use scholarship, research, and the arts to create environments of care and compassion
- practice empathic understanding and dialogical communication
Our programs address themes such as:
- the rise of hate ideology, prejudice, and antisemitism
- culpability and complicity
- resistance, resilience, and moral courage
- discrimination and diversity
- justice, reconciliation, and trust
