"Reacting to the Past" was honored with the 2004 Theodore Hesburgh Award for pedagogical innovation. The project has received developmental support from the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, the Teagle Foundation, and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education. "Reacting" has also been featured in Change magazine ("Inciting Speech" by Mark C. Carnes, Mar./Apr. 2005, winner of the 2006 William Gilbert Award [AHA] for the Best Article on Teaching History), the Chronicle Review (“Being There: The Liminal Classroom” by Mark C. Carnes, Oct. 8, 2004); the New York Times ; the Chronicle of Higher Education; the Christian Science Monitor; and elsewhere. 

The success of the "Reacting to the Past" pedagogy in engaging undergraduate students has been confirmed by faculty reports, student evaluations, and independent observations. Click on the links to the left to see sample commentary.

The pedagogy has also been the subject of formal double-blind assessment studies conducted on multiple campuses. The studies show that "Reacting" students, when compared with those enrolled in other general education courses, improved in certain salient categories associated with learning, including the development of an appreciation of multiple points of view on controversial topics and a belief in the malleability of human characteristics over time and across contexts. Speaking skills also improved substantially. Additional information on the assessment can be obtained by emailing reacting@barnard.edu.