Professors and staff from universities across North America will be meeting over the next two years to participate in an Elon University-sponsored seminar to develop and research methods for teaching students how to think in ways appropriate to democratic societies.
“Teaching Democratic Thinking,” the first iteration of the Elon Research Seminars on Engaged Undergraduate Teaching, brought to campus last week 18 staff and faculty from institutions that include Michigan State University, University of British Columbia, The Evergreen State College and Simmons College, to name just a few.
Participants will spend one week at Elon each summer through 2011 to explore and research teaching “democratic thinking,” a concept with multiple and contested meanings. With a renewed emphasis on civic engagement not just at Elon, but on college campuses throughout the country, the lead organizer believes such a seminar was needed for faculty and staff to discuss and research the intellectual underpinning of how students learn to ethically engage with the communities they are currently a part of and those they will be a part of in the future.
“We have a responsibility to consciously and deliberately work to become better thinkers,” said Stephen Bloch-Schulman, an assistant professor of philosophy who coordinated the seminar, which is being co-sponsored by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) and Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.
Bloch-Schulman said the questions the group is asking are central for teaching in a modern university: What is democratic thinking? What role does, and should, it play in political activity and in personal affairs? Can we, and how do we, teach the process and assess the results of such thinking? As the seminar’s web site states, “Unlike in a course that focuses on the technical aspects of how to achieve a particular goal or result, a course that teaches for democratic thinking would… ask not only how to achieve something, but also why to do it, when to do it, and when not to.”
“Part of what we’re doing is surfacing these unarticulated concepts and examining how they have affected the communities in which we live,” Bloch-Schulman said.
Seminar participants will spend the next two years researching democratic thinking and developing and enacting their own research projects and campus initiatives; through these, they will examine the nature of democratic thinking and highlight models of good practice. Along with Bloch-Schulman, Elizabeth Minnich, a widely published philosopher and a Senior Scholar at the AAC&U, is leading a team of three other scholars to inspire and guide participants in their work.
Peter Felten and Katie King, of Elon University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, helped in conceiving of the project, and they, along with the staff of the center, provided assistance for the seminar.
On Tuesday, July 14, participants broke into four groups for lunches and visits to many of the community partners who work with Elon faculty, staff and students. Groups were led by faculty members Laura Roselle, Kim Jones, as well as Kernodle Center director Mary Morrison, and Bloch-Schulman (along with Spoma Jovanovic of UNCG and Edward Whitfield, a community activist in Greensboro).
Faculty members Brian Nienhaus and Deborah Long, along with Blanca Zendejas Nienhaus – a Fairness Alamance member – and Elon students Chris Manor, Maggie Castor, Brice McHale and Frances Gee added their voices to Tuesday’s conversations.
With visits to community centers in Burlington and Greensboro, the Alamance County jail, and Kopper Top Life Learning Center in southeastern Guilford County, seminar participants saw for themselves how Elon’s faculty and staff have engaged with local communities and have used these connections to engage students and teach democratic ways of thinking.