Frankie Weaver is the Managing Director at the Institute of American Civics (IAC) housed at the Howard H. Baker Jr. School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. Weaver leads the institute’s statewide K-12 outreach and engagement initiatives. She develops impactful K-16 programs, including student-facing initiatives and teacher-facing professional development workshops and conferences. This includes leading the IAC’s TN Civics Academy, a premier annual collaborative conference for K–12 government, history, law, and social science teachers. This year, the IAC will host three academies in Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.

Weaver taught history, research methods, and writing courses at the University at Buffalo (SUNY UB), SUNY Brockport, D’Youville College, and Maryville College. She often liked to bring her research into the classroom, sharing primary sources and interviews with students, helping foster a more nuanced understanding of history. She also has experience in Oral and Public History, having managed recent oral history projects connected to career-connected learning, community engagement, and workforce development, as well as collections management projects for the Oneida Community Mansion House, a National Historic Landmark, where she previously served as the Curator of Collections. 

Currently, Dr. Weaver teaches part-time for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in the Leadership Studies Minor within Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. She enjoys teaching about acting as a facilitator, change processes, and leadership activities through the lens of civic and community engagement.  

Weaver’s early research focused on how anti-apartheid art, both its production and the artwork itself, fostered solidarity between transnational communities. Her dissertation, “Art Against Apartheid: American and South African Cultural Activism and Networks of Solidarity,” examines American anti-apartheid activism from the late 1940s through the 1960s by tracing transnational solidarity networks. Weaver has published an article with Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies entitled “Anti-Apartheid Solidarity Networks and the Production of Come Back, Africa” (2015).

Weaver joins the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, having previously earned dual B.A. degrees in Theater and History, a M.A. degree in History, and a doctoral degree in History from the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB). Weaver is also a graduate of the University at Buffalo’s “Advanced Honors Program.” More recently, she completed a post-doctorate associate degree from the University of Maryland Global Campus, focused on computer science and digital humanities.