Theme parties spark changes in class curriculum

By Natasha Lindstrom

More than 50 faculty members across a broad span of disciplines -- religious studies, Spanish and engineering departments alike -- have updated syllabi, changed curriculum or devoted class time to exploring the events and implications of the "south of the border" theme party.

"Our chief responsibility is as educators, and I think the obligation and responsibility is both to find out where students are at and to try to educate the values that are important to us," said religious studies associate professor Catherine Murphy. "And if we find something loathsome like this, we have the obligation to address it."

Provost Lucia Gilbert sent out an e-mail in February inviting faculty to share stories of how they used the event as a teachable moment and soon received replies from more than 50 professors.

In response, the provost's office hosted a faculty symposium in which three professor panelists shared the unique ways they incorporated the theme party into the classroom.

The first panelist to speak, religious studies lecturer Sarita Tamayo-Moraga, explained how she teaches students "mental flexibility" and thinking in terms of "concepts," adding that students who learn both usually "learn compassion accidentally."

"You don't have to literally be in fear or in danger to know how that feels," she said.

Her class most relevant to the theme party winter quarter was Mysticism in Action, where she asked students to examine the seeds of racism, she said. One place she was able to gauge student responses was in the anonymously graded journals they wrote for seven weeks, some of which included reactions to the theme party.

"Students said things like, 'How could I forget about compassion?' " she said.

In a class where personal journal entries do not quite fit, assistant professor in the civil engineering department Edwin Maurer struggled to weave the theme party into classroom material.

Personally, Maurer's experience living and working in Latin America helped him to recognize how offensive certain actions were.

However, engineering classes must abide by a strict outline of what needs to be covered, not leaving too much room for curriculum flexibility, Maurer said.

Meanwhile, his class was discussing "open channel flow in circular convents not flowing full." Maurer thought creatively how to tie in the theme parties to the already-scheduled curriculum.

He asked students to come with up a community layout in which they had to connect sewers designed to maintain certain conditions. In an engineering economics exercise, Maurer assigned the rough costs so that they turned out to be much more than the community could afford.

"Now imagine this is in a rural community in Oaxaca, Mexico," he told his students. "You're home for the summer, and because of the dumping of the US market, there's no sustenance for corn, and there's a 50 percent unemployment rate."

Then he told students that they had a cousin construction worker and the plan could be realized if they were to give up four months to work there themselves.

"Would you do it?" he proposed.

"It led to some really rich discussion," he said, noting that in his class some Latina women spoke out about their personal histories and stories of exclusion. "It led to some sharing on a personal level that I've never seen in an engineering classroom before."

It was the students who asked Maurer, "Why aren't we discussing this in any other engineering class?"

Maurer emphasized that he did sense an "unspoken desire" at engineering department meetings to incorporate events like the theme party into classes, but that faculty often wondered if they could and how to do it.

As engineers, Maurer said, students are "designing infrastructure to make life more livable." For example, water system designs will impact how healthy children are, he said.

"Understanding that there are humans behind what we're doing, not just equations and tables" is important, he said.

Class with Locatelli

After his students suggested it, Thomas Beaudoin, assistant professor in religious studies, invited University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., to speak with his Practical Theology class in early March.

Among topics of discussion were how the university makes decisions that affect student life and how students' values relate to the values of administrators in terms of race, class and theme parties.

"The whole experience taught me just how hungry my students are for serious reading and discussion about how their faith relates to their everyday personal practices, and to the institutional practices that make up the college experience," Beaudoin said in an e-mail.

Beaudoin was pleased with the students' participation during Locatelli's 45-minute stay.

"Invigorated by Fr. Locatelli's visit, students not only responded with passion and seriousness, they showed me ways to teach theology that will help me keep it even more deeply connected to their joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties as college students," he added.

Student feedback

Students' experiences in classrooms have varied.

Junior Jen Young heard nothing about the theme party in any of her accounting or operations and management information systems classes.

"No one addressed it at all," Young said. "But for me, just because of the kinds of classes I was in, I understand why they didn't address it -- it didn't really pertain to the subject."

Young said that even with education, some people's minds and notions won't change.

"It would be good to educate them, but they don't have to accept it," Young said. "No matter how much Fr. Locatelli addresses the issue, some people will still have their beliefs."

Although one of junior Patrick Flanagan's accounting professors brought up the theme party for about 10 minutes during class in winter quarter, Flanagan did not find it necessary.

"I just feel like it's the polar opposite of accounting," Flanagan said.

However, Flanagan said he appreciated his advanced Spanish class initiating discussion on the theme party, as well as his current ethics class paper, in which he wrote about his own experience with the event.

But for real cultural change, Flanagan advocates students getting real-life interactions in diverse settings.

"I honestly feel it's almost like, in order to get the point across, you need to try to have some kind of experience that's going to get you to walk in someone else's shoes," Flanagan said. "Education alone is not the solution. You won't understand until you get out into the community."

Contact Natasha Lindstrom at (408) 554-4546 or nlindstrom@scu.edu.