While his students are on summer vacation, Patrick O'Neil, a social studies teacher from Charlotte, N.C., is spending time in a "summer school" at Colgate University.

Graham Hodges has written numerous books and articles about slavery.

O'Neil and two dozen other K-12 teachers from as far away as California are taking on the role of students, receiving a history lesson of their own as they attend the Institute on Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad in upstate New York.

The three-week seminar at Colgate is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and supported by the university's Upstate Institute.

"Our goal is for teachers to bring back what they learn here to help jump-start their students' knowledge," said Colgate professor Graham Hodges, director of the teachers' institute.