Nina O’Connor, Romance Languages and Literatures | 2020-2021
The project will entail designing curriculum and developing course materials with inclusive teaching instructional practice for a new Spanish 232 course, Gender Equality in Latin America. The aim is to develop the curriculum with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as the framework, and including new technologies as appropriate. A follow-up to this on-campus course is a Global Connections Course (GCC), which will take place in the spring of 2023 in Mérida, México. This GCC course also requires curriculum and project development. This GCC will provide students with a variety of experiential learning opportunities. For example, students will visit the local Women’s Center, and hear talks from Women’s Empowerment workshop leaders and workshop attendees. Students will be doing a cultural and linguistic exchange with Mexican students from a local university, collaborating on a project related to gender equality.
In Spanish 232, we will survey and examine some of the realities and challenges facing gender equality in Latin America. We will look at the topic as a whole and then focus our attention on important influences and subtopics such as machismo, reproductive rights, and gender violence. We will also look at the steps being taken to address these challenges. The last unit will be decided based on the students’ interests. As part of the curriculum, I will look to set up a virtual exchange, a collaborative online international learning experience with UM students and Mexican university students.
For the GCC in Mérida, we will examine and analyze the situation at the local level, in the city of Mérida, and at the national level of México in general. We will follow-up on our studies with a talk and Q&A with the director of the local women’s center. We will continue our studies looking at powerful & influential women artists, politicians and business owners and will meet with local women business owners. Students will also have the opportunity to meet with university students in Mérida (ideally, the same students they worked with in the virtual exchange during the winter term) to learn from and collaborate with their peers. The project collaboration will involve an initiative to help the women’s center.
The overall project, including both the Spanish 232 course and the GCC, will include curation of resources and identifying and coordinating guest speakers. To fulfill the objectives of the project and course development, I will continue my own training regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Inclusive Teaching, Equity-focused teaching, virtual exchanges, new technologies as well as current research in the area of gender-based violence, and the historical cultural roots that allow this to happen.