Reflecting on How to Create a Just World: Ethical Engagement with Community through the Humanities

FAIN: ZED-283943-22

St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN 55057-1574)
Nancy MacKay Thompson (Project Director: May 2021 to October 2024)

funding in full or in part for project directors and managers,10 student facilitators, and participating faculty, community groups and guest speakers, as they collaborate to develop ethical, inclusive, local and global, community-engaged Humanities  courses in Asian Studies, art, art history, Norwegian, and classics. 

St. Olaf College proposes a three-tiered project to develop more ethical community-engaged Humanities-based courses, locally and globally, work that was interrupted by the pandemic. Funding to support additional staff, a cohort of dedicated faculty and student workers along with a series of workshops will allow us to achieve most of what we had originally planned. First, project leaders will create reflection materials on ethical engagement for students studying off campus or enrolled in academic civic engagement courses in the local community. Second, faculty development opportunities in the form of workshops on ethical community engagement will be provided to advance faculty understanding. Third, leaders will continue work begun on “engaged” departments across campus. Engaged Departments integrate local and global community engagement into their programs, so all students gain intercultural and critical skills and dispositions to engage thoughtfully and ethically with the world.