Special Edition Spring 2022: TRW Opinion: "The Reflective Woman" Requires Reform

Why St. Kate’s formative first-year course needs a curriculum change — and how to improve it for future students

When I was handed my schedule for my first semester of college, I intended to treat The Reflective Woman (TRW) as students treat graduation required courses. I approached it with the attitude that I would do my best to forge my way through the class, doing the work so that I could get the grades and then swiftly move on to classes that would be more pertinent to my major and eventual career path.

But perhaps this was close-minded and foolish of me. After all, any required class, especially university-wide, has an intended takeaway that it deems necessary for its graduates to carry with them into the workforce. I wanted to write this editorial on what I think St. Kate’s should change about TRW so that it really is a worthwhile class. I do not wish to only complain about this course or illustrate its faults; rather, I want to open up a conversation surrounding TRW and what improvements could be made.

Throughout this piece, I rely heavily on my own experiences in TRW and also seek to highlight others’ thoughts on TRW to provide a more holistic view of what the class is like across different course sections.

Additionally, I want to acknowledge that the university is currently putting effort into revising TRW. I believe that St. Kate’s faculty and I are aligned in this respect: We want students to be able to take away valuable knowledge from the class and to look back on it as a worthwhile experience. Michael Householder, professor of English and director of undergraduate curriculum, put it perfectly: “Typically what students say about required Gen Ed courses is, ‘Ugh, I have to take this class. They’re making me take this class.’ My goal is that students say, ‘I’m so glad I got to take this class. I get to take this class. I want others to take this class; you should come to St. Kate’s so you can take this class.’ That’s what we’re shooting for.”

Householder said he would like to look into making participation in the university’s Integrated Learning Series, which some TRW classes already had as a part of their coursework this past fall, an important part of classes’ curriculum. The Integrated Learning Series is a program that connects what students learn in the classroom to real-life activism. The REDress Project, which students might remember from when red dresses were hung up around campus in the fall, was part of the current “Indigenous Thought Leadership” series. “Something that we piloted in the fall was doing some work around the legacy of Indigenous genocide, as well as murdered and missing Indigenous women,” Householder said. “Many of the faculty who led the piloted version did some readings, did some projects, had some activities that were focused around those themes. We found it to be really invigorating and loved the idea of having these first-year courses … tied in with the Integrated Learning Series.”

Furthermore, Householder wants to make active learning a greater part of TRW’s curriculum. “We need to do more of an emphasis on leadership with a focus on real-world problem-solving,” he said. “The way I think about this in my mind is, ‘Let’s stop talking about stuff in TRW. Let’s start doing stuff.”

The idea behind this is to connect students with activists so they can see how real-life issues are solved in practice, which might only take up a small part of the course curriculum. “We can use TRW as an opportunity to learn more about how leaders are working toward solutions to these problems today by engaging local organizations and individuals in conversations and projects,” Householder said. “For example, maybe some TRW classes could visit with activists working toward restoring lands to Indigenous communities to help restore biodiversity. Other classes might talk to an artist who is working on a project to raise awareness about improving public park access for people with mobility impairments.”

Grounding TRW in reality through participation in the Integrated Learning Series and discussions with activists is necessary to make the class a productive experience that provides answers to discrimination instead of one that centers around abstract readings and class dialogue. Personally, I had a service-learning aspect of TRW that I appreciated but that I agree could have been improved if our class had interacted with the activists involved in the project.

My classmates and I volunteered at Frogtown Farms, which focuses on providing food for its local community. As the only green space in its neighborhood, it works to combat food insecurity.

I truly enjoyed the gardening we did at Frogtown, even if we didn’t get to pick any apples. Image courtesy of pixabay

While it was important that we had some impact on the local community through TRW coursework, I also wish we had the opportunity to speak with some of the employees who worked at Frogtown Farms or even its founders. This would have allowed us to more fully realize and learn about the impact of community organizations on marginalized neighborhoods.

Householder also aims to better implement diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) into the class. “I want to make sure that DEI is an integral feature of TRW,” he said. “I know it is already, but I’ve heard enough … not ideal reports of experiences in TRW around equity and inclusion, [and] I want to make sure that that is absolutely eliminated, that all students have an outstanding experience.”

As for the particulars of what exactly this would look like, Householder said faculty need more feedback from students to figure out what would be more effective. But one of the shifts in DEI that Householder would like to try implementing is moving TRW away from discussing the experiences of BIPOC students and toward responding to issues of prejudice. “We cannot educate tomorrow’s leaders without also helping them learn how to work effectively in diverse teams and communities,” he said. “We need to do that in a way such that BIPOC students are not responsible for teaching their non-BIPOC classmates. I am of the opinion that one way to do that is to do less reading and talking about racism (and other forms of discrimination) in isolation or in the abstract, and instead start working collectively on questions or problems that necessitate that we confront our own prejudices and positions of power.”

While TRW does have an issue with an overreliance on students to inform their peers, in some respects, it also has the complete opposite issue. Some students noted their class discussions were structured in a way that silenced students when they wanted their voices heard. “My professor overtly cut off people of color in conversation,” said Tara Harbo ‘25 (English and Studio Art). “Every time a topic of experience she didn’t agree with was brought up, she also cut it off. This happened when the class tried to discuss the importance of abortion rights, as well as when we went in depth about transgender peoples’ experiences.”

Mollie Pierson ‘25 (Sociology, Economics and Women and International Development) expressed frustration that student voices would be ignored instead of amplified in our TRW class. “The instructor will tell you [class discussion] was student led, but really it was him lecturing and allowing us to add points when it suited him, and if you in any way challenged him he would undermine you or shut you down,” she said. “I’m not sure this was his intent, but it’s how it came across to us as students.”

I would agree with Pierson and add that it seemed as if a prescribed list of topics needed to be touched on in class. Any deviation from that list would be “corrected” by the professor so that students were unable to bring up points of conversation they wanted to discuss.

All students should be allowed to respectfully express their experiences and opinions in TRW, a class that is meant to be discussion-based. Class should not be structured solely around a strict lesson plan that must be followed to the letter or solely around what professors feel should be covered. After all, the class is called “The Reflective Woman,” and ideally discussion would often focus on topics that students feel are relevant to their own lives.

Notably, Householder said he is implementing additional training for professors who teach TRW, which includes a variety of approaches. This spring, he is holding some workshops on several topics to help professors improve their instructional methods, including “antiracist pedagogy.”

He also noted these workshops are an opportunity to foster dialogue with professors surrounding possible changes that could be made to TRW and listed some questions that might be considered: “To what extent do we want to coordinate with the Integrated Learning Series? Will it be possible for every section to have a community-based engaged learning experience? Are there some especially effective readings or activities that will help students confront their own racism and work toward a more inclusive learning community?”

This summer, Householder will also host some reading groups for professors, which he described as, “opportunities for us to read the latest articles and books that can spark our thinking about improvements we can make in our own teaching.”

He added, “In August, we will convene as an entire instructional team for some more opportunities to discuss best practices related to assignment design, coaching critical thinking, managing classroom discussion and other teaching-related topics. And finally, I will be offering weekly teaching workshops on a variety of topics for all available TRW and GSJ faculty throughout the academic year.”

Considering the mentions from several students about TRW’s tendency to foster harmful instead of helpful dialogue, there definitely need to be revisions in how the class is taught so students are placed back at the center of the conversation. I hope additional faculty training will focus on allowing students to bring their perspectives to the table while minimizing reliance on minority students to educate their classmates. I commend professors for their attempts to foster productive classroom dialogue: It is not easy to strike a balance between these two aspects of discussion.

Furthermore, the content that students are assigned to read for class needs revision. Opinions on TRW readings are mixed. Many felt that more relevant readings could have been chosen. “While most of the readings were interesting, it often felt like reading for reading’s sake, and not for an aspect of the class,” said Fern Schiffer ‘25 (English). “I think a lot of it could have been cut for more applicable texts/homework.”

Others said their readings focused too much on one topic. “[The readings] were mostly interesting, but we spent a lot of time talking about Sister Antonia,” said Mia Yoder ‘25 (Environmental Science).

However, many students had positive experiences with the readings. “I really enjoyed the content we went through in class,” said Aurora Long ‘25 (Psychology). “We were able to delve in deep to topics that I was already aware of, as well as content I did not know as much. I felt this class was very impactful.”

Long and I were in the same class, and I would agree that we had a lot of discussion surrounding important topics that I am glad I became more knowledgeable about, including redlining and Native American boarding schools. However, I take issue with how focused the class was on discussing topics the syllabus required that we cover instead of what students thought we should also talk about. Intersectionality was a subject that rarely came up, and there was almost no discussion surrounding the experiences of queer people. I wish we had been able to talk about these important issues more.

To remedy this issue, I propose that there should be a prescribed list of topics that each professor is required to touch on throughout the semester. One of the main problems I have with TRW is that students had such vastly different takeaways and experiences with the class. There seems to be no unifying factor or core curriculum, besides the notion that the class should talk about people of marginalized identities in some capacity.

In the future, this list needs to include intersectionality and LBTQIA+ issues. Of course, systemic racism and the history of how misogyny has been ingrained into society should be talked about, too. A generalized outline of what needs to be covered will allow the class to discuss a variety of relevant topics throughout the semester while still allowing professors flexibility in how they teach.

Student feedback on the topics that the professor covered should also be required through the means of a survey at the end of the semester. This should be separate from the general course surveys the university already has so students are allowed to express their thoughts in an in-depth way. Faculty need to directly see student opinions on specifically the topics covered in TRW so they can make precise changes to course curriculum for the next semester, removing things that students find irrelevant or repetitive.

Student feedback is an essential part of improving any course. Image courtesy of pixabay

With all this being said, there is still an entire aspect of TRW that I have not addressed yet. TRW is also supposed to help first-year students improve their writing skills. Once again, opinions on the class’s effectiveness in this category were mixed. A few students commented on how it made their writing better. “TRW definitely helped me with learning how to format college papers and developing an essay format that works for me,” said Kajnrig Khang ‘25 (Psychology).

Another student who took TRW in the fall of 2020 said it helped her learn the mechanics of citing sources. “I feel like the class helped me become better with the reference format and how to write a bibliography,” said Changying Vang ‘24 (Art History).

However, others commented that TRW was not effective at helping them develop their writing. “TRW taught me how to skim 30 ‘very important’ pages of text and write a dubiously accurate summary in under an hour,” said Blue Edwards ‘22 (Studio Art), who took TRW in the fall of 2018. “I don’t know that that was the intended result.”

Harbo had a similar opinion and thought that TRW’s impact on their writing was minimal. “TRW didn’t help me develop my writing ability,” she said. “It mostly reviewed content that I had learned years ago.”

Personally, I would agree that TRW was not helpful when it came to improving my writing. We had two classes that were dedicated to peer revision sessions on two different papers. For half of one of those classes, we discussed what we should look for when critiquing another student’s writing. We also received one round of feedback from our professor on two of our papers.

With this in mind, I would describe my class’s overall focus on developing writing ability as minimal. If TRW is going to be a first-year writing intensive class, it should discuss how to format research and personal essays in a more thorough manner. There needs to be more time given to how students should critique their own and their peers’ papers, looking at aspects such as transitions, the use of textual evidence and analysis. It should also provide a sufficient introduction into the main citation styles, such as MLA, APA and Chicago.

It is possible, though, that perhaps my class’s minimal focus on writing was because it was an honors section of TRW. Still, for a writing class, the fact remains that I barely improved my writing over the course of the semester.

Overall, while I am glad that St. Kate’s has recognized that TRW needs to be improved, it still has a long way to go before it is what it should be. I agree with Householder that an increased focus on impactful discussions with activists would be most beneficial in grounding the course material in reality. Furthermore, discussion should be student-focused but professor-taught, and course content should be more standardized across different sections of TRW. Finally, TRW needs to have a greater focus on developing writing skills if it is meant to be a first-year composition course. TRW has the potential to be groundbreaking and formative for students, and perhaps, with time and revision, it can be.