Diversity, Inclusion, and Dialogue Immersion

A leader’s ability to facilitate understanding, inclusion, and resolution is key to leading a group to success. Honoring and valuing Black and Black Deaf people’s experiences are critical to creating an inclusive, empowering and effective work group. During classroom dialogue, students will actively participate in structured discussions with students and learn from each other’s perspectives, read and discuss relevant reading material, and explore avenues to resolution. Students may apply knowledge gained through dialogue and readings to lead agencies and organizations to inclusive change. Students will also explore ways of taking action to create change and bridge differences through readings, journals, leading a dialogue and a final written paper. (Prerequisite: LEAD-200 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).

Leaders of social justice movements work towards visions of a better world—one that dismantles systemic barriers and injustices. This course will turn to intersectional fiction writing to examine how literature can contribute to social justice movements. In other words, we will ask how reading literatures of intersectionality may foster social justice movements. In doing so, we will situate contemporary intersectional literature in their historical contexts—looking to the theory and writing of feminist women-of-color, queer studies, disability studies, Indigenous studies, and Deaf studies. We will read some of these theories as literature and literature as theory—with attention to interlocking forms of oppression and privilege. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).

This skills-oriented course introduces theories and practices of conflict resolution and provides basic training in mediation, negotiation, and facilitation. In addition to examining the strengths and weaknesses for each of these conflict resolution methods, this course orients students to specific tools commonly used in each to manage conflicts, such as identifying the zone of possible agreement (ZOPA), developing BATNAs (best alternative to a negotiated agreement), and performing SWOT Analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). Through the use of case studies, simulations, role-plays, and reflective practice, students will learn how to manage power imbalances and ethical dilemmas, address needs for accommodations, and adapt for cultural differences. Students will learn a range of transferable skills for managing interpersonal, organizational, and community disputes. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).

This course will include an overview of the history of current race & ethnic relations in the United States, including the Deaf community. It will provide students with advanced skills in planning, evaluating and leading group discussions needed to create and empower working groups in the community, education or on the job, to achieve their organizational goals. Students will be challenged to apply these skills by engaging in discussion about critical and contemporary issues experienced by people of color and diverse ethnicities to facilitate understanding and resolution between members of diverse working groups. During classroom dialogue, students will actively participate in structured discussions with students and learn from each other’s perspectives. Students will explore avenues for resolution. Students will use readings, journals, discussions, and a final written paper to explore ways of taking action to create change and bridge differences. (Prerequisites: LEAD-203 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring).

The course will provide a context in which to examine the multiple and contradictory social relations of domination, subordination, resistance, and empowerment. The kinds of questions we will explore focus on how power, knowledge, meaning, and cultural representation are organized. We will analyze a variety of political and ideological themes which bear upon the formation of minority group relations, their identity and how these themes complicate the processes by which people construct their understanding of the nation, world, of others, and themselves. Through reflection on theoretical texts and fictional works, as well as film and other popular media, we will consider for ourselves how culture is differently represented and signified, and how the politics of understanding and misunderstanding minority relations work through practices within and outside cultural institutions. Lecture 3 (Fa/sp/su).

An overview of the history of gender and its evolution in American society will be provided. Students will be challenged to apply dialogue skills by engaging in discussion about critical and contemporary issues experienced by different genders to facilitate understanding and resolution between members of diverse working groups. During classroom dialogue, students will actively participate in structured discussions with students and learn from each other’s perspectives, read and discuss relevant reading material, and explore avenues to resolution. Students will also explore ways of taking action to create change and bridge differences through readings, journals, leading a discussion and a final reflection paper. (Prerequisites: LEAD-203 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).

Deaf history, as a field, has often neglected the story of deaf women. Scholar Arlene B. Kelly has recently asked, Where is deaf herstory? This course seeks to correct that gender imbalance in deaf history. We will study deaf women's history. This will include a consideration of deaf-blind women, as well, as women like Helen Keller were often the most famous deaf women of their era. But this course also seeks to look at the role of hearing women in deaf history. Hearing women dominated the field of deaf education in the late nineteenth century. They had a tremendous impact on the lives of deaf children and the events of deaf educational history. Hearing women were also important figures in deaf history as mothers. As mothers of deaf children, hearing women were frequently asked to behave as teachers in the home. Their embrace of this role often led them to endorse oral education, and oppose the sign language. Hearing mothers in this way were pitted against their adult deaf daughters, who frequently went on to learn sign language against their mothers' wishes. The historically complex relationship between women and the deaf community will be explored in this course. Lecture 3 (Biannual).

A history of the Deaf, Deafblind, DeafDisabled and Hard-of-Hearing communities and their relationship with the American society will be discussed. This course will challenge students to apply group skills by engaging in discussion about critical and contemporary issues experienced by deaf, deafblind, deafdisabled, or hard-of-hearing communities to facilitate understanding and resolution between members of diverse work groups. During classroom dialogue, students will actively participate in structured discussions with students and learn from each other’s perspectives, read and discuss relevant reading material, and explore avenues to resolution. Students will also use readings, journals, discussions, and a final reflection paper to explore ways of taking action to create change and bridge differences. (Prerequisites: LEAD-203 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring).

The deaf community has a long and complicated relationship with technological devices. The deaf community, for instance, was quick to embrace the new technology of moving pictures, and many deaf actors found work in early Hollywood during the silent film era. Most lost their livelihoods when sound was introduced to motion pictures. Deaf people were left out of the communication revolution brought about by the telephone for many years, but now the deaf community is increasingly a wired community, as texting, tweeting, and vlogging makes more communication technologies accessible to deaf users. This course will explore the historical relationship between technology and deafness. It will consider how views of deafness frequently shape technology, that is, if deafness is viewed as a pathological illness, technologies are focused on curing it (e.g., cochlear implants), whereas, if deaf people are viewed as members of linguistic and cultural minority, technologies are harnessed to make it easier for that minority to interact with the majority culture (e.g, relay systems). This course will consider how deaf people have historically used, created, and adopted technologies to their own ends. Lecture 3 (Spring).

An evolution of the LGBTQIA movement and intersectionality will be covered. This course will challenge students to apply group skills by engaging in discussion about critical and contemporary issues experienced by LGBTQIA communities to facilitate understanding and resolution between members of diverse work groups. During classroom dialogue, students will actively participate in structured discussions and learn from each other’s perspectives, read and discuss relevant reading material, and explore avenues to resolution. Students will also use readings, journals, leading a discussion and a final reflection paper to explore ways of taking action to create change and bridge differences. (Prerequisites: LEAD-203 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).

Students in this course will be introduced to the historical study of diversity in the Deaf community, especially as it relates to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and sexuality. Students will learn to analyze the implications of such diversity in terms of the social perception of deaf people, the history of the education of deaf people, and the experience of acculturation for and as Deaf people. The course will examine how the process of acculturation has operated, historically, within the Deaf community. Deaf culture has sought to transcend various differences and to bond members of the Deaf community together, in one, larger Deaf identity. But has this always been achieved? How has the Deaf community handled issues of diversity in different historical moments? Has the history of diversity within the Deaf community been similar to the history of diversity within the hearing community? Or have there been distinctively Deaf ways of diversity in history? This course will invite students to compare and contrast the history of difference and diversity in the deaf and hearing communities, and to explore those historical moments of intersection and interaction as well. Lecture 3 (Fall).

An overview of class and privilege in American society will be provided in this course. In a socially diverse organization, an effective leader must develop the talent of harnessing the skills and contributions of each of its members to achieve its goals. Classism and privilege have precluded many people from access to or full participation in many educational, professional, and community-based organizations. Developing skills to discuss issues of classism and privilege is critical to any work group’s effectiveness. A leader’s ability to facilitate understanding and resolution is key to leading the group to success. Working to establish a just work group as well as empowering and valuing diverse abilities and experiences are critical to creating inclusive and effective work groups. (Prerequisites: LEAD-203 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).

This course is an introductory survey of Deaf culture in the United States. Students will study the scholarly literature pertaining to various social groups in the Deaf community and have contact with their members. This course will familiarize students with the characteristics of Deaf Culture, as well as general perceptions of the Deaf community within the dominant mainstream society. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).