Cherry Whipple

Austin High School (TX)

Cherry Whipple, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, is a National BoardCertified history teacher at Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas. She teaches the Advanced Placement U.S. History portion of an interdisciplinary course, American Studies, partnered with an AP English teacher. As an AP instructor, she often shares her knowledge and resources with teachers around the nation through her online presence and through face-to-face venues. Cherry uses her experience in humanities-related to present at the local and national level, including at the AP Annual Conference and the Western History Association Conference, where she received a Charles Redd Center Teaching Western History award.

Cherry was honored as the 2018 Texas History Teacher of the Year from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, a 2018 Outstanding Teacher of the Humanities from Humanities Texas, and received a James Madison Fellowship to work on her graduate degree in history at Ashland University. A strong advocate for the humanities, Cherry served on the 2017 National Humanities Center Teacher Advisory Council, works with the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Western Region on teacher-historian collaborations, and attends many professional development opportunities around the nation, such as institutes by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Ashbrook Center, the Western History Association, The National Council for History Education, and the Texas Council for the Social Studies.

In addition to her teaching role, Cherry is the chair of the Innovative Media and Technology Department on her campus, is a Campus Innovation Coach for her school district, and supports instructional technology and blended learning through workshops, mentoring, and advocacy. She currently is finishing her MicroCredential for “Transformative Technology” and hopes to continue her innovative pathway by working on additional credentials in project-based learning, literacy, and advanced academics. Outside of her school duties, when Cherry is not spending time with her granddaughter and family, she consults on U.S. history topics for major textbook publishers at both the Advanced Placement and college levels.