Intersections/Perspectives
Urban Faculty Seminar
Bush/CST Project

Urban Faculty Seminar Program Overview and Application

Eager to learn more about ways to engage the broader Twin Cities in your teaching? Want to develop a civic engagement course that addresses issues of multiculturalism? Consider applying for this summer’s URBAN FACULTY SEMINAR to be led by American Studies professor Karin Aguilar-San Juan in collaboration with Paul Schadewald and the Civic Engagement Center.

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. All faculty are invited to apply to be part of an urban immersion seminar for faculty as a way of moving through these barriers and connecting to community members and leaders from widely disparate racial and cultural backgrounds.

Multiculturalism and civic engagement have been central to Macalester's mission for over 40 years. Macalester's exceptional Civic Engagement Center 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 civic engagement components (these can include community-based research projects, dialogs with community members, partnerships with community organizations, and neighborhood-based experiential learning). The Urban Faculty Seminar will cultivate a larger group of faculty who understand and appreciate the role our urban environment can play in teaching and scholarship. This role is vital if students are to test and modify abstract theories in contested, dynamic, increasingly multicultural communities across the nation and around the world.
You may apply for the Urban Faculty Seminar regardless of your level of familiarity with the Twin Cities or with issues of race and culture.

The Urban Faculty Seminar will:
1. Orient faculty to the Twin Cities
2. Examine community struggles related to multiculturalism and provide theoretical frameworks to analyze urban issues
3. Enable faculty to integrate knowledge of the urban environment and community partners more effectively into their teaching and advising
The seminar will be held over three days in early- to mid-August, 2008. Participants will receive a $1000 stipend.

To apply, please respond to the below questions and send your application to Jan Serie. Applications due March 2008

Please write a short essay about why you want to join this seminar that addresses the following questions:

Why do you want to join?

What central question motivates you to integrate the city into your teaching?

Describe a new course you would like to develop, or an existing course you could modify, with an urban component.

What challenges or barriers do you face in bringing an urban component to your classroom?

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