Projects / University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Service-Learning and the Infusion of Cultural and Religious Diversity in the Undergraduate Core Curriculum
PI: Gregory Jay, Director, Cultures and Communities Program, College of Letters and Science.
The project builds on the university’s experience with service learning. Students in the classroom benefit enormously from cross-cultural communication skills acquired through carefully designed service experiences in diverse settings. The project aims to extend and strengthen the partnership between the university’s Cultures and Communities undergraduate general education curriculum and its Institute for Service Learning. It also aims to enlarge the focus on cultural and religious pluralism by expanding the core course on “Multicultural America,” designing new classes on religious and cultural pluralism, developing pedagogical strategies for conducting difficult dialogues, and cultivating new service-learning placement opportunities.
To expand the number of faculty trained in conducting dialogues and in using service learning, the project will bring faculty together in two summer workshops on how to teach about encourage an appreciation of pluralism. The summer workshops will be a vehicle for faculty to engage in dialogues about their own differences, to share materials, assignments, and learning goals, and plan units on pluralism across the curriculum. The project will support a conference co-sponsored by Milwaukee’s Interfaith Conference, a Difficult Dialogues Brown-Bag series, and specific curriculum-development projects focused on pluralism. Two key themes run throughout the activities: Critical self-reflection on one’s own cultural identity is a required foundation for true cross-cultural dialogue; and practical experiences in multicultural settings are vital instruments in advancing an appreciation of pluralism.
See the project's site here.