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Alison Mountz began the conversation. She teaches urban geography and is interested in the challenges of getting students to learn about the city. She taught at the University of British Columbia before coming to Syracuse. She organizes field trips so that students enter into the city, encountering it up close, rather than studing it from a distance:

At U.B.C., students were required to do a two hour walking tour in the downtown eastside area. The students then created representations of the place, recognizing themselves as members of the city, as complicit in what they saw. Students produced different representations of the place—including photo collages, tape recordings, collections of artifacts, as well as written essays—that formed the basis for a lot of discussion.

On another project at U.B.C. students were to walk around "gentrifying" neighborhoods, unguided, observing signs of displacement.

In Syracuse she arranged a field trip to the Eastern Farm Workers Association, where students could learn about their work and advocacy, in the face of the effects of globalization.

Students in at SU also went to the Midland Avenue waste treatment facility site, where they met with local activists as well as walked around the site.

Anne asked each panelist to talk about what they worried about with these assignments, and Alison commented that she had anxiety about what students can learn in two hours, what challenges rather than reinforces stereotypes; she also worries that residents of the neighborhoods will feel uncomfortable as students enter their space. She provides a lot of content before they go, and the class discussion moves between theory/studies and their experiences.

Adam Banks: In response to Alison's assignment, Adam mentioned the barbershop series, films which take up the issues of gentrification. He then began by talking about finding a place in diversity work/initiatives where you can stand as a way to connect practice and theory. For him, the question is, how do we enlarge access for those who have been excluded? Tolerance and multiculturalism isn't enough. The stories of African Americans, Latino/as, and Native Americans have to be heard as part of the larger stories. So writing instruction is organized in two ways: [1] framing the courses around language and politics and [2] making central to the course content the histories and practices and rhetorics of those who have been excluded, so that all people can see themselves in the stories. He described a number of diversities - intellectual, pedagogical, curricular, and evaluative. They all have to be a part of daily practice. He also noted that linguists no longer debate the value of different languages, but there is still a debate about what language(s) we teach and value in the classroom.

Adam then described his current WRT 205 class, which is taught from an African American perspective and then links out to larger issues. He draws on popular culture, without reducing the intellectual rigor of the coursework. He is looking always for students to find ways to play to their interests while still attending to the larger issues raised in the course. He doesn't think there's a problem with content in a writing course.

Adam described his 'intellectual mix tape' assignment - to demonstrate for students the different ways to package ideas and intellectual claims. They have to create a sound track that conveys or challenges the work/readings of the course as well as write something like 'liner notes,' which requires higher order synthesis. That is, they can't just pick some music, but they have to argue for the particular mixing they have designed.

In a course, culture, and technology, Adam requires that students do a technology transformation project, based on 'low riders' (historically a practice in Latino culture, where men transform cars so that they reflect the perfect combination of individual identity and larger cultural connections). Students have to transform the computer, from the codes to the case.
He is interested in creating real space for people in the curriculum without ever sacrificing the intellectual work/rigor.

Michael Lasley talked about how Spike Lee's film "Bamboozled" might be taught in our writing studios, especially Studio 2. He showed two clips from the film, and passed out a handout with ideas on ways to historicize the film (see handout). This unit aims to challenge the blackface and bias-related incidents on the SU campus.

Brian Stout discussed the activist work he is doing on campus in terms of LGBT issues. As a witness to the gay bashing in the fall, he has taken it upon himself to change the climate. He passed out an essay that he and Rachel Moran have written (which will appear in the LGBT Pedagogy book being produced by the Graduate School, edited by Kathleen Farrell, Nisha Gupta, and Mary Queen) and a list of resources. He then showed a 10 minute power point presentation. He has talked with Judicial Affairs, Residential Life, and a Higher Education class about this work, so it is making it's way into the institution. The Writing Program will have this presentation available for teachers to use through its diversity website.