Lois MacMillan

Lois MacMillan teaches American and World History at Grants Pass High School in Grants Pass, Oregon, however in her thirty-one years of teaching, she has taught at the elementary, middle, and high school level. After earning her National Board Certification in Early Adolescence-Social Studies, MacMillan won Oregon’s 2006 History Teacher of the Year. She has been a Barringer Fellow at Monticello, Catherine B. Reynold’s Teacher Fellow at Ford’s Theatre, and Oregon’s 2021 James Madison Fellow. For the past decade, she has served as a Master Teacher for the Gilder Lehrman Institute for over thirty summer seminars. She is paired with different American historians from different universities from around the country and teaches pedagogy applicable to various historical periods. She also serves on the Teacher Advisor Group for the Gilder Lehrman Institute, National Council of History Education, and the National Constitution Center.

Ms. Mac’s efforts to bring diverse stories, personal emotions, and community connections into her lessons as well as fostering excitement for high-quality, engaging history education reflects the love and passion she has for each of her students. She was awarded Oregon’s Civic Teacher Award for a student project on Oregon’s fallen soldiers since 9/11. In 2018 she won Grammy Museum’s Jane Ortner Award for incorporating music in the non-music classroom. In the fall of 2018, she took a one-year sabbatical in New York City where she worked with Title I high school teachers and students in fourteen cities around the country on Founding Era curriculum, culminating in their attendance to the Broadway show, Hamilton.