Special Edition Fall 2022: The Reflective Woman Retrospective- One Year Later
By Natalie Nemes
If you read my editorial last year on The Reflective Woman, you know I had several grievances with the curriculum and the way instructors presented content to students. Michael Householder, English professor and director of undergraduate curriculum, who I consulted last year regarding how faculty were revising or hoped to revise TRW, invited me to write a follow-up article this year. I accepted this offer with vigor and set out to investigate how TRW has evolved from one year to the next.
To gather student opinions on this year’s TRW courses, I published a Google Form mid-semester, asking first-year and transfer students to share their thoughts. I particularly wanted to investigate if students had experienced or seen racism in their TRW classes, especially considering that several students at last year’s protest spoke out about this issue. Specifically, some students have reported that TRW courses in the past have relied on BIPOC students to share their traumatic experiences and educate their white peers about racism.
Of the 10 students who responded to my survey, five said that they had not seen or experienced this form of racism in their TRW class, while three said that they had. Two others were not sure or had a more nuanced experience.
Ella Tracy ‘26 (Political Science and Public Policy) said the course does not inherently rely on BIPOC students to educate their classmates. In fact, she worries that white students tend to dominate class conversations because of the way the professor structures discussions.
Tracy also added that she thinks the professor asks students to discuss their personal experiences in more depth than many are comfortable with. “If the student brings up their experiences unprompted, I know they are comfortable [sharing] these experiences,” she said. “The issue arises when the professor prompts the student to continue speaking when they are clearly finished. This is most prominently applied to students when sharing experiences with immigration and racism trauma, but I’ve also seen it occur when students are talking about mental health, being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, religious trauma or historical/family trauma.”
However, not all students had a negative experience with class discussions. Ashantti Lino Altamirano ‘26 (Psychology) said her class of majority BIPOC students feels comfortable sharing their experiences and that her professor does not pressure them to speak when they do not wish to. “I feel that we all have something to add to the conversation[;] we all feel comfortable about speaking up,” she said. “We do not feel pressured to speak about our traumatic experiences[;] our teacher makes sure that we have the option to pass if we do not want to elaborate or speak.”
Since last fall when I took the course, there have been two workshops for TRW and GSJ professors aimed at improving these classes, one in May and one in August. According to Householder, the workshop in May focused on, “cultural fluency, both as a teaching technique and as a learning outcome for TRW.” He said that TRW and GSJ professors reflected on their teaching methods to, “make sure that they are culturally fluent and as inclusive as possible” and that they, “thought about the materials that we were using and whether those materials, activities and assignments were supporting and teaching cultural fluency.” The August workshop focused on course materials that would develop cultural fluency in students.
Art history professor Amy Hamlin attended both the May and August workshops and said they had helpful takeaways for handling microaggressions and fostering equity in the classroom. She thought the sessions had, “actionable recommendations to faculty to apply in real time,” and added that the guest speakers and discussions were not just “admiring the problem, but rather giving concrete action items to faculty.”
In my survey, I asked students, “Does your professor foster inclusive class discussion that allows all students’ voices to be heard?” Seven answered “Yes, all the time,” while one responded “Often” and two said their professors “Rarely” facilitated inclusive conversations, indicating mostly positive experiences.
Both students who answered “Rarely” chose to elaborate on their responses. “He [the TRW professor] cuts students off on numerous occasions and tries to say what we just said in his own words but add what he wants,” Lydia Moylan ‘26 (Psychology, ASL minor) said. “BIPOC students have been interrupted while they were bringing something very important to the conversation and it’s just because he’s decided the conversation should be going a different direction.”
Tracy echoed a similar sentiment, saying, “Students are regularly interrupted in my class,” adding, “This is stunting our ability to have productive conversations with each other.”
Sandra Mitchell, director of equity and inclusion, was able to provide insight into the role she plays in improving DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in classroom spaces. Primarily, she said, her office works with, “professional development and making sure that faculty are educated around these topics.” However, while professors are offered workshops, seminars and other professional development opportunities, Mitchell said that they are not required for faculty. She said, “it would be really good to say all TRW faculty are required” to engage with cultural competency training, but emphasized the difficulty in making sure that all faculty attend workshops and then actually implement those strategies into their classes.
Mitchell also said she worked with Householder to host professional development meetings specifically for TRW faculty this fall surrounding cultural competency. “I came in at the beginning of the semester to do maybe an hour where we talked about cultural competency, understanding what cultural fluency means, and we touched on some of these issues around navigating difficult conversations and how to bring culture into the classroom,” Mitchell said. “But I don’t think we did it well enough, so this is our first time even trying this.”
When I corresponded with Householder last semester about steps faculty were taking to make TRW a more engaging, informative experience, he said he hoped to make active learning a greater part of the curriculum to transition away from only talking about issues of systemic discrimination. While participation in the Integrated Learning Series was less possible this semester compared to last year because most events are scheduled for the spring, he said most TRW sections worked with Community Work and Learning to receive a community-engaged learning project.
TRW community-engaged learning experiences took place over three class sessions: the first, where students were encouraged to think about the purpose of service learning; the second, where they actually completed hands-on work through a program such as Empty Bowls or the Food Access Hub; and the third, where they reflected on their experience. Hamlin’s class participated in the Welcoming the Dear Neighbor? project to identify racial covenants, an experience they said students brought up as “a highlight of the course so far.”
A course as central to the philosophy of St. Kate’s as TRW carries a lot of weight in how it shapes students and represents university culture. I look forward to seeing how TRW course curriculum continues to improve in the future—and I hope it can become a universally positive experience for all students that productively discusses social justice issues and advocates for change.
