Wow, this Spring semester is flying by and this is the first time that I am able to highlight one of my Spring courses — Race and Ethnic Relations: Discovering New Solutions. This is the second time in which I am teaching this new course that I feel needs to be taught in our Anthropology department and our College of Arts & Sciences due to the fact that there is no other course selection that lectures, investigates and discusses issues of race and ethnic relations to the extent that I cover in this class.
Basically, the course objectives are:
1. Review the major concepts and theories associated with race and ethnic relations.
2. Highlight the major race and ethnic relations issues locally in eastern North Carolina, each region of the United States, and the United States in general.
3. Review anthropological techniques to collect cultural data on specific issues on race and ethnic relations.
4. Provide a framework for students to develop individual and/or group race and ethnic relations solutions.
From the start, this class has been a bit more hesitant to engage deeply with the topics of race and ethnic relations yet once I started providing other avenues of discussion, the students interacted and engaged more on several culturally-sensitive topics. Oftentimes, I would divide the classroom up into small groups to examine a most relevant topic and then present their issues to the class.
Check out a few photos.
