American Studies

In Minneapolis and St. Paul, civic engagement cannot be separated from multiculturalism. With 42% of residents identifying with at least one minority group and recent immigrants comprising 15% of residents, the Twin Cities offer extraordinary opportunities to gain knowledge and skill about diverse cultures and communities. Opportunities to engage the rich array of cultures in the Twin Cities will help faculty become more effective teachers and advisers across social difference. Deeper social knowledge about inter-group and intra-group relations locally and, by extension, in the United States, counteracts the well-documented fact that European-Americans live and work in more segregated environments than other Americans. Such knowledge also erodes the social, psychological, institutional and physical barriers that restrict what we know about the lives of those who do not share our ethnic/racial identification. We propose an urban immersion seminar for faculty as a way of moving through these barriers and connecting to community members and leaders from widely disparate cultural backgrounds.

Multiculturalism and civic engagement have been central to Macalester’s mission for over 40 years. Macalester’s exceptional Community Service Office connects 80% of our students to volunteer opportunities in the community before they graduate. In any given year, half of the student body engages in community service. While we are proud and supportive of this valuable work, we know that too many Macalester faculty members regard civic engagement solely as an extra-curricular activity for students. This premise persists despite several excellent Macalester courses that include service learning components. The Urban Faculty Seminar cultivates a larger group of faculty who understand the role our urban environment can play in academic programs. This role is vital if students are to test and modify abstract theories in the messy, dynamic, increasingly multicultural communities across the nation and around the world.

Through faculty engagement in Project Pericles, we know that many faculty want to learn how to incorporate community perspectives into courses. These faculty include those teaching courses central to civic engagement, but who have arrived fairly recently and have not yet explored the Twin Cities. Candidates for the Urban Faculty Seminar also include those who are well acquainted with the community, but who have never considered a civic engagement component in their courses.

Bush funds have helped us develop an Urban Faculty Seminar for selected faculty participants. The seminar 1) orients faculty to the Twin Cities; 2) examines community struggles related to multiculturalism and provides theoretical frameworks to analyze urban issues; and 3) enables faculty to integrate knowledge of the urban environment and community partners more effectively into their teaching and advising.

The Urban Faculty Seminar includes two components: 1) a seminar designed by a Macalester team; and 2) an independent project through which faculty develop knowledge, skills and/or partnerships to be used in teaching, advising or student-engaged research.

The coordinating/planning team from Macalester oversaw the development and implementation of the seminar and included the Director and the Associate Director of Macalester’s Community Service Office and a Faculty Seminar Director. Macalester contracted with The Higher Education Consortium on Urban Affairs (HECUA) to offer the seminar for the summers of 2005 and 2006, tapping into the network of community partners developed by Macalester’s Community Service Office. The seminar syllabus included readings about theoretical models of urban community structure and development. Faculty drew on both assigned readings and direct experiences in discussion and “debriefing” sessions led by the seminar facilitators (HECUA staff).

The Urban Faculty Seminar Director was recruited through a campus-wide search and chosen in consultation with the Bush Advisory Committee, the Dean for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Faculty Director of Project Pericles, the Director of the Community Service Office and the CST Director. Selection criteria included knowledge of Twin Cities communities, demonstrated commitment to faculty development related to diversity, familiarity with relevant scholarship and a willingness to contribute to the seminar beyond the grant period. During the grant period, Macalester identified campus resources and external funders in order to continue the seminar beyond its inception funded by Bush.

Faculty apply for the Urban Faculty Seminar in the spring preceding each summer offering. Applications provide information about their motives and goals for participation. Criteria for selection is as follows: 1) The likely impact of seminar participation on strengthening the faculty member’s teaching, advising, scholarship or service to the College; and 2) The degree to which the faculty member’s participation in the seminar will be impact other faculty in her/his department, program or scholarly cohort.

Assessment Strategy and Activities

Measurable Objectives: To enhance the ability of faculty to 1) draw lessons from the urban environment into their classes; 2) bring a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of multiculturalism to the classroom; 3) bring more knowledge about civic opportunities in the Twin Cities to academic advising, so faculty can better direct students to community service and internship choices that mesh well with academic goals; and 4) for some, to broaden their own scholarly work into the realm of public scholarship or action research.

Evidence of Success: 1) Courses are revised to add or improve a civic engagement component; 2) Students in such revised courses gain a greater understanding of multicultural issues in an urban environment; 3) Faculty are able to connect students with community resources that synergize academic and out-of-classroom activities; and 4) In some cases, faculty undertake public scholarship or action research, or enhance the quality of their work in this area.

Assessment Plan: We will 1) ask faculty to report on ways in which the Urban Faculty Seminar affected course design and implementation; 2) ask faculty to report how the Urban Faculty Seminar improved their capacity to teach and advise across social difference; 3) work with faculty participants to incorporate items into their midterm and final course evaluations that assess the impact of improved course components on student learning ; 4) ask faculty participants to document their enhanced effectiveness as academic advisors by reporting on how community engagement by students was enriched by knowledge gained in the Urban Faculty Seminar; 5) design and administer to faculty at the end of the Seminar an assessment survey designed to measure progress toward the seminar goals; and 6) dedicate one issue of the campus faculty magazine, Colloquy, to reports on the Urban Faculty Seminar, including brief reports from each participant about their individual projects.

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