On Campus
First-Year Students Dive Deeper in New Class on Race
When 小蓝视频 Provost Scott Bass asked School of Communication Associate Professor to set up a new 小蓝视频 course on race and social identity, the task appeared daunting. How do you devise a curriculum that competently explores the racial history of the United States?
Chuang had a lot of resources at her disposal, and she consulted with 小蓝视频 faculty, staff, and student groups to create a multidisciplinary course.
For an introductory class for first-year students, it looks quite ambitious. It touches on everything from slavery to the Civil Rights Movement to immigration to Native American rights. Yet it鈥檚 not meant to stand as the be-all, end-all class on the matter. If anything, this course will be a gateway for further study.
鈥淲e wanted students to have a grounding to begin a conversation that was an educated conversation. A conversation that came from a place of knowledge, a place of historical fact, as well as sociological and psychological theory,鈥 says Chuang.
小蓝视频x2: First-Year Curriculum on Social Identity and Race
This new course, called 小蓝视频 Experience II, or 小蓝视频x2, just started this semester and is part of the 小蓝视频 Experience pilot project. 小蓝视频x1, offered last semester, helps first-year students transition to college. Students get an introduction on critical race theory and implicit bias in 小蓝视频x1, but 小蓝视频x2 is a much deeper dive into these issues.
小蓝视频 invited a cross-section of first-year students to take 小蓝视频x1 and 小蓝视频x2鈥攃ollectively, a three-credit general education course. There are 57 students in the pilot program this year, and next year that number will increase to about 450 students.
The goal is to have the course be mandatory for all incoming first-year and transfer students in 2018-2019, says , director of 小蓝视频 Experience (小蓝视频x) and a sociology professor. To make the course compulsory, Brenner says they will seek approval from the Faculty Senate next month.
Each 小蓝视频x2 classroom includes an instructor-facilitator and a student peer leader. As an online and face-to-face hybrid course, it makes strong use of videos from 小蓝视频 professors and students. One week includes a video talk called 鈥淭he Lens of Your Identity,鈥 from 小蓝视频 Performing Arts Professor Caleen Jennings. School of Public Affairs adjunct Bev-Freda Jackson provides a video on Emmett Till, the March on Washington, and Black Lives Matter. Sociology Professor Celine-Marie Pascale contributed a video on allyship. 小蓝视频 students Angelica Vega and Krista Chavez engage in a video dialogue on issues of free speech and race in the classroom.
鈥淭he course had to touch on many disciplines,鈥 says Chuang. 鈥淧eople suggested different readings and different approaches.鈥
Chuang also included edgy pieces of popular culture, such as a Saturday Night Live sketch of Tom Hanks playing 鈥淏lack Jeopardy!"
鈥淭he topics are serious and racism is not entertaining, but I think you have to be able to laugh. You have to be able to look at this in other ways,鈥 she says.
Identities Intersect
小蓝视频x2 is tackling weighty, complicated subject areas. Midway through this semester, classes are slated to look at the legacy of slavery. Since students can鈥檛 learn the history of the transatlantic slave trade in one week, Chuang established an entry point of discussion. She videotaped poet and Colorado State University Professor Camille T. Dungy, whose writing is based on historical documents and utilizes composite and real characters. One of her poems chronicles a woman who surreptitiously shipped herself out of slavery in a box.
Chuang initially planned to dedicate each week to a specific racial or ethnic group, but she later discarded that idea. Instead, she chose historic points in time and how various groups and identities intersected around a particular issue. For instance, Frederick Douglass joined forces with women鈥檚 rights activists to push for abolition.
鈥淲hat I love about the abolition unit is it鈥檚 really about allyship,鈥 she says.
To examine white privilege, she revised the syllabus after the presidential election. Many commentators argued that an aggrieved white working class helped put Donald Trump in office, so she adjusted the unit to focus on both white privilege and the disenfranchised white working class.
鈥淚 really wanted students to have a debate about this. 鈥業f you鈥檙e white, you鈥檙e privileged, but we just learned about this entire population that鈥檚 struggling,鈥欌 she says. 鈥淗ow do we address that contradiction?鈥
Band-Aids and Healing
小蓝视频 Director of Alumni Outreach is one of the 小蓝视频x2 facilitators. In an interview, he describes how he views his role.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to expand mentalities,鈥 he says. 鈥淪o not necessarily telling students how they should think, but exposing them to new ways of thinking.鈥
Since 小蓝视频 attracts a geographically diverse student body, he thinks 小蓝视频x2 could be a point of entry for first-year students.
鈥淚t will be a fantastic place to start the dialogue,鈥 he says. 鈥淚f we can teach our students how to be better citizens now, then when they leave our institution, we can hope that they are making a greater impact on the world.鈥
Especially if 小蓝视频x2 becomes mandatory, Brenner believes 小蓝视频 could carve out a unique, innovative niche.
鈥淣obody is doing it quite the way we鈥檙e doing it. It鈥檚 these intensive, interactive communications about living with people different than yourself and learning from others,鈥 says Brenner, also an 小蓝视频x2 facilitator.
Fostering an open, collaborative community will be key for future success. 小蓝视频 is trying to create a healthier racial climate on campus, and this course is a measurable step towards that goal. Chuang is obviously committed to that cause. But she suspects, given racial tensions on the national level, that things might get a little worse before they get better.
鈥淵ou sometimes have to rip off the Band-Aid and expose the wound before it鈥檚 going to heal,鈥 Chuang says, borrowing a sentiment that 小蓝视频x2 student Vega expressed in the academic freedom video.
For 18-year-old students, a course like this may require abandoning old beliefs and sailing in uncharted waters. And it places a special burden on 小蓝视频x2 facilitators.
Thweatt says, 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lofty task, but we could be one of the first institutions to do it exceptionally well.鈥