Diversity Scholar-in-Residence Program

This project enables Allegheny faculty members who are teaching about diversity to apply for funds (from the Office of the Dean of the College) to bring in guest lecturers (which we are calling scholars-in-residence) for our courses in a way that is far more intensive and integrated than the usual guest lecturer experience is.

The Diversity Scholar-in-Residence Program is a joint effort by the programs in Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Asian Studies, Black Studies, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies

2007-2008 Diversity Scholars-in-Residence

Miryam Hazan, Diversity Scholar in Residence, October 2007

Immigration scholar Miryam Hazan will be on campus October 7-10 as a Diversity Scholar in Residence. Hazan, who is at work on a book manuscript titled "Becoming Mexican and American: Immigrant Politics for a New Century," will provide an overview of her work in a keynote address on Monday, Oct. 8 at 12:15 p.m. in Quigley Auditorium. (Box lunches provided beginning at noon for the first 85 attendees.) Hazan earned her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006 and is a visiting scholar at Rutgers University this year. Her work will be of interest to scholars and students of immigration policy and politics, political institutions, social movements, and transnational activism. This visit is sponsored by Shannan Mattiace of the Political Science Department (x3349.)

Stephen Finley, Diversity Scholar in Residence, October 2007

Stephen Finley, ABD at Rice University and Arnold L. Mitchem Fellow at Marquette University, will visit campus to share his work with the Allegheny College academic community. He works with global Islam, but specializes in the Nation of Islam and issues of race, gender, and masculinity. This visit is sponsored by Eric Boynton of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department.

Stephen Finley will visit classes in the Philosophy and Religious Studies and History, as well as an FS 101. He will deliver a public lecture, "Esotericism and Embodiment in the Nation of Islam," at 7:30pm on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 in the Tillotson Room of the Tippie Alumni Center. All are welcome.


Principles of the Diversity Scholar-in-Residence Program

What follows are the principles of curricular engagement and integration that make an application viable:

The "Is and Does" Principle

The scholar-in-residence must both represent diversity and do distinguished scholarly, creative, public policy, or community service work in the area of diversity-this is what we will call the "is and does" requirement. The rationale here is multi-pronged: all of our students need exposure to people of scholarly distinction from groups that have been historically marginalized (the role model paradigm); while we don't accept a reductive identity politics claim that only those who are can do work in the field of diversity (such a claim would disqualify many of us from the work we do), we recognize that the perspective of one who "is and does" is a valuable one; there are exciting people out there who fall into our "is and does" category and we want our students to have a rich interaction with them and their work.

Student/Scholar Integration Principle

The scholar-in-residence must be built into the syllabus at the start of the semester and booked before the semester begins. Students in the course will read and write about the work of the scholar-in-residence in advance of the visit, so that the campus interaction will be informed and intensive. Preferably the visitor will spend a full two-three days on campus and have multiple meetings with the students in the course. These meetings should take place during course time but should include extensions of course time as well. The visitor may also give a public lecture, which students are required to attend and for which they might well do some planning and publicity work. Interactions between students and guest should be structured so that learning will not be passive-so that dialogue and discussion are reciprocal. Students may be involved in the planning and structuring of the interactive events through pre-visit brainstorming sessions that generate questions and topics, for instance, or they may be assigned the development of a follow-up or outreach project in relation to the visit. Students might create web sites, on-line discussions, or chat groups that could be used to publicize the visit and/or extend its influence. In any case, the criterion here for funding is the degree to which the instructor/applicant has thought through and built in the ways in which students will be prepared to maximize the visit as a course resource and to extend its benefits to the campus and wider community.

Course Content Integration Principle

The scholar-in-residence must be built into the syllabus in ways that cohere with the focus of the course; we seek applications that truly use the visitor's work as central to the course project. As a hypothetical model, consider the following: Quinn teaches a course in Topics in African American Literature (English 322) which focuses on the Harlem Renaissance. Students read a cultural history of the period called When Harlem Was in Vogue by Rutgers historian, David Levering Lewis, who is also a major biographer of Martin Luther King, Jr. and W.E.B. DuBois. If he were brought to campus under our proposal, students in the course would have read his interpretative history of the era which they are studying, would have read academic reviews of his book, and would have done a paper on the interpretative arguments that the book makes about the Harlem Renaissance. Since the overall focus of the course is on the question of what is at stake in literary and cultural production in this period (and since there is wide debate about the answer to this question), Levering Lewis would be brought in as a key player in the debates that shape the course. Students would interact with him as informed participants in the debate, and his visit would be presented and experienced as a close encounter with a major scholar of our course material.

It is not difficult to imagine the wide range of uses to which the program might be put, and it is not the intention of the shapers of this proposal to limit the kinds of courses which could qualify. A course in the creative arts might make use of an artist who represents diversity and whose work speaks to its issues. The way in which the Dance Studies Program made use of Adenike Sharpley and the African Dance Program in the fall of 2002 provides a model of the kind of curricular integration this proposal is interested in, making use of a slightly modified structural model Courses in the VESA minor might apply for funding to bring in a prominent community activist who represents and works with diversity. An Environmental Studies course might tap someone who represents the African American community and works on environmental racism issues. A biology course with a number of pre-med aspirants could bring in a public health physician who works in communities of color as a member of such a community. The possibilities are multiple and exciting.

The diversity scholar-in-residence program might be of particular interest to the FS curriculum. Faculty teaching in the FS program might group together to develop a cluster of FS courses that feature diversity (in some specific way) as a topic. People teaching appropriate FS courses could apply for diversity scholar-in-residence funding individually or as a cluster.

Procedure for Applying

An applicant should submit a proposal (hard copy or electronic) to any member of the Steering/Screening Committee. The proposal should do the following:

  • explain who the person is, what are their credentials are, and how they meet the "is/does" model
  • make clear what course(s) he/she will be involved with during their visit, and what form that involvement will take; we prefer that the students read something by the Scholar in advance, for instance (what we call the "syllabus integration" component)
  • identify, tentatively, what the person's public lecture or performance would be about
  • sketch out how many days the person will be here (we want a minimum range of two and a half to three class days) and what they will be doing other than classes and the public presentation--meetings with students, student groups, relevant faculty, etc.
  • a tentative budget, projecting honorarium, travel, and on-campus expenses

See or contact any member of the Steering/Screening Committee with questions. After the Committee has screened the application and determined its appropriateness for the program, we pass it on to the Dean who decides whether to fund it.

Program Assessment

Allegheny College faculty who sponsor diversity scholars-in-residence are asked to submit an assessment of their visit to the Steering Committee. You can download the assessment form here.

Steering Committte for the Diversity Scholar-in-Residence Program

09/28/07 ib
Link to Home Link to Faculty Link to Courses Link to INTDS 210 Link to Study Plans Links Link to Diversity Scholar Program Link to bio of W.E.B. DuBois Link to bio of James Baldwin Link to bio of Zora Neale Hurston Link to bio of John Hope Franklin Link to bio of Sojourner Truth Link to bio of Bessie Smith