Stories

This week’s Faculty in Focus is Allison Walker from High Point University in North Carolina Periclean Civic Engagement Fellow Allison Walker from High Point University (HPU) taught “Empathetic Communications in a Digital World,” an interdisciplinary Communications and Business Leadership course that emphasized the development of students’ empathetic and ethical reasoning, alongside media literacy skills. The course integrated Project Pericles’ Deliberative Dialogue module to facilitate a discussion on minimum wage determination. This dialogue was enriched by course readings and experiential learning activities called  “Empathy Adventures,” which immersed students in experiences that reflected the challenges faced by minimum-wage workers.  The “Empathy Adventures” assignments provided students with opportunities to engage directly with the realities many Americans face everyday. These tasks included preparing and sharing a healthy meal for four people for less than $10, standing for eight consecutive hours to simulate the physical strain of certain jobs, and using public transportation to commute to

Welcome back to Faculty in Focus! This week we’re highlighting Julia Chadaga from Macalester College In her Russian Studies course, Once We Arrived: Stories of Immigrants’ First Jobs, Julia Chadaga partnered with the International Institute of Minnesota to connect students with local immigrants to share their stories. By exploring the challenges immigrants face in securing their first job in the U.S., students gained invaluable insights into immigrant experiences while amplifying these individuals’ voices. Students conducted interviews which were recorded and uploaded to a course website, preserving their narratives and making them available to the public. Through this project, students gained valuable skills in communication, collaboration, and technology while deepening their understanding of the contributions of immigrants to their local community.  Working in small groups, students were matched with interviewees from all over the world, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ecuador, Mexico, and Russia. The project began with an informal meeting designed to