For her final project as part of the Doyle
Undergraduate Program, Emily Coccia conducted interviews with Georgetown
faculty members to explore new paradigms for how to
teach diversity.
Background: On April 10, 2015, Emily Coccia, an undergraduate fellow in the Doyle Engaging Difference Program and member of the Georgetown
College class of 2015, interviewed Dr. Lauve Steenhuisen, who has served as a
professor in Theology and Women’s Studies since 1995. She is a scholar of
American theologies and religious movements, specializing in feminist and
sociological analyses. In this interview, Steenhuisen discusses her
experiences, challenges, and joys in working to create a deliberately inclusive
classroom atmosphere.
In your class,
“Religion in American Political Life,” you’ve clearly integrated many current
events that deal with diversity—be it differences in religion, sexual
orientation, or gender. How do you approach some of these topics, which can be
quite personal, in a way that opens up discussion without making students feel
uncomfortable or silenced?
I think intentionality is key in balancing these competing
demands. I aim to create a classroom atmosphere that is low in conflict and
personal tension, but that encourages students to be piercingly intellectually
curious. For many students, especially freshmen, this class is the first time
they’re talking about some of these issues in an academic setting, so I try to
create a sense of trust and safety in the classroom. For the first few weeks of
class, I tend to dominate class with lectures and readings to establish the
boundaries of respectful discussion and acceptable behavior. After that period,
though, I intentionally pull back and shift into my role as facilitator to push
students to work through the issues and develop their opinions without a sense
of what the professor thinks the right answer is. I intervene primarily to
thwart consensus, which impedes careful consideration and nuanced answers, by
posing new questions.
Have you found any
methods to be particularly useful?
One of the main strategies I have employed is making myself
available outside of class. I hope that students come in to bounce ideas off of
me—be they quiet students who feel hurt or upset by something that has been
said or extroverted students who feel they have not gotten to voice all the
opinions they wanted to explain. I want my students to know that I care, and to
that end, I value protecting students and will respectfully shift the
conversation if it veers off topic or correct anything egregiously out of line.
Over my years of teaching, I’ve learned ways to shift the conversation in a
more respectful direction without shutting it down entirely. This was the critical skill during my time abroad
at the McGhee Center in Alanya, Turkey. With only nine students, we had to
develop a real sense of trust in each other.
I aim to create a classroom of ideological diversity, which
necessitates having controversial opinions voiced and oppositional positions
taken. I have learned to use certain tools to bring these voices into the
classroom as something to grapple with, even when students in the class don’t
hold these opinions. One of the main ways I’ve done so is to place an emphasis
on identifying the stakeholders in any issue. By making these players visible,
we avoid dismissing certain voices in favor of a respect for their rationale in
any issue. I’ve received training in Edward De Bono lateral thinking.
Assumptions about what we expect to happen or expect to hear block our minds
from creative thinking. In class, I listen for the silences and ask: What
perspectives aren’t being heard? I aim to illuminate those silences, even if it
means that students will hear opinions that differ from their own.
In our class it
definitely seems like most students understand the balance of voicing their
opinions and respecting others in the classroom. How do you deal with classes
that, for some reason or another, miss the balance?
I’ve certainly had classes that are less conducive to open
dialogue than others, but over time, I’ve learned how better to maintain that
balance. Before class, I always try to clear my head and avoid entering the
room with any outside emotions or tensions. During discussions, I see my role
as holding space; I want to make sure that I recognize those students who
really want to talk or respond to someone, even if they’re not being overly
vocal about it. Students should never leave class feeling frustrated or angry.
If I can make myself open, I hope that students will come talk to me if they
ever feel silenced or unheard in the classroom.
I thought those goals
came across from the first day when we signed the Class Covenant. How did you
come up with that idea?
As you know, I teach a lot of contentious issues, but I want
students to express their opinions and listen to one another. The covenant asks
students to promise not only to be respectful, but also to be vocal and open to
having their opinions change and develop over the course of the semester. As
part of “Religion in American Political Life,” I have the students debate
issues that include the LDS Church’s involvement in that Proposition 8 ballot
initiative, prisoners’ rights to practice their religion while incarcerated,
and business owners’ rights to deny services based on religious beliefs. In
debating these highly politicized issues, I hope students will learn how to
disagree with collegiality. Of course, I provide a list of behaviors and
responses that are not tolerated—shaming and ad hominem attacks, for
example—but those boundaries actually allow the classroom to become a space of
radical academic freedom. We’re all enriched by a diversity of opinions,
especially those that are most different from our own, because they force us to
confront our own beliefs and acknowledge areas where they might have gaps. The
ground rules for debate and the Class Covenant put us all in a position of
listening, as opposed to just waiting for our turn to speak, that pushes us to
actually respond to what has been said.
What have been the
biggest difficulties you’ve experienced while teaching?
I’ve been fairly lucky to have students that are quite
respectful of each other, but I have had challenges with making sure all students speak and develop their
opinions. My first time teaching “Religion in American Political Life,” I had
one student, a staunch libertarian, who wanted to add her opinion to every
conversation. While she had a unique opinion that deserved to be heard over the
course of the semester, I needed to find a way to balance letting her speak and
allowing other students to find their own voices and develop their own
opinions. I didn’t want the quiet students to feel disempowered or silenced.
Ultimately, I reached out to her and scheduled monthly meetings for us to talk
about the month’s issues together outside of class time. In class, I tried to
call on her as much as other students, especially in situations where I knew a
libertarian opinion could be useful, but otherwise, I pushed quieter students
to speak more. I’ve found that I look for tools that work in service of the
greater good while balancing competing demands as best as possible.
To avoid focusing only
on the challenges, I always like to ask: what have you found rewarding about
creating an inclusive classroom space?
I'm used to listening to un-nuanced ideological positions at
times due to friends and family. It seems that no one ever changes their minds
or even listens to the other person. The classroom tends to be a more neutral
space—a space for learning—where students can open up without the righteous
anger that fuels political debates. While we all have our own opinions, I call
on students to be “neutralizers” to maintain a respectful atmosphere in which
we can all learn from each other. It’s always so rewarding to hear students’
passion coming out in the class and to watch them evolve in their thinking over
the course of the semester.
Finally, in a more
general sense, how have you thought about intentionally crafting diversity into
your classes—be it sculpting syllabi or writing questions with certain issues
in mind?
First, I want to
talk about an example of a class where I’ve had to change my approach after
realizing that I wasn’t really engaging difference in a thorough way.
I’ve taught “Feminist Theology as Lived Religion” twice now. In developing this
class, I wanted to avoid only bringing in the perspectives of white feminist
theologians. Reflecting on the first time I taught the class, I realized that I
used other voices just to show the evolution of feminist theology to make a
point that we’re all theologians and use our perspectives to make our own
theory. Then, as a faculty Doyle Fellow, I realized that the readings brought
in voices that weren’t just white feminist theologians, but the speakers did
not. I like to think I did a better job the second time by bringing in African
American, Hispanic, and Asian speakers. I wanted to ensure that we had a true
presence of diverse voices and opinions, rather than simply talking about them
as readings in a series.
Ultimately, from my work in promoting
ideological diversity in the classroom to displacing power from my hands into
the students’, I try to embody the philosophy of the “Peaceable Classroom,” a
feminist theory on pedagogy. The main idea is that as a teacher, I have a
glowing sword in the classroom that I must use for bullies or students who
attempt to dominate discussion without listening to other perspectives or
allowing their fellow students to contribute and actively engage with the
materials. I have tried to learn to be a feminist in a classroom using power
equitably.