Philip Crossman has spent most of his life teaching the humanities to high school and college students. His interest in Middle Eastern history was sparked by several years he spent working in Jerusalem. Upon his return to Vermont, he completed a master’s degree in Islamic-Western Relations at Norwich and went on to pursue an M.Ed. in educational technology at the University of Toronto.
He currently works as an administrator at Community College of Vermont (CCV) and teaches part-time at CCV and Norwich University.
First Impressions: 19th Century New Englanders and the Origins of American Perceptions of Islam
By Vermont Humanities | December 21, 2017
Philip Crossman tells the story of Middlebury College graduates Pliny Fisk and Levi Parsons, who set out to the Middle East to serve as Christian missionaries in the Islamic world in 1819.