Appetite for good

Maria Vivero
Associate professor of finance

Glenna Jennings
Associate professor of photography and social practice

Glenna Jennings: What’s kind of remarkable is that we share a lot of the same content in our courses. We both have students who may consider themselves completely worlds apart. But yet, when they get a chance to sit down and talk, they find we share plenty of common goals. 

Maria Vivero: You can completely detach from the larger society by thinking your industry is a place in the clouds that has nothing to do with or has no effect on anyone else’s life. The truth is we are entirely dependent on one another. We really need art and beauty to give meaning to our existence — it is essential for our survival.

GJ: And we really need money to make and share that art! 

MV: Take redlining. My students learn that the way urban areas in the United States are segregated today is the result of policy decisions that influenced the choices of families and lenders about a century ago. For example, investment in Dayton’s reconstruction after the 1913 flood, and practices like redlining, meant Blacks in Dayton had limited housing and investment options. The formation of “food deserts” is the direct consequence of policy decisions that were made by people who are not alive today. In my course, one of the community partners I connect students with is the Gem City Market [a Dayton food co-op in an area with no other grocery stores]. Students must see that decisions being made today may have an impact on generations who are not yet born.   

GJ: Back in 2019, students in my Art and Social Practice course took a specific look at Dayton’s redlining maps. They made graphic designs from the written components, put those graphics on ceramic plates, and then served guests food right on top of this difficult history during a project called Dinner in the Desert Kitchen. The event connects Dayton’s food deserts with broader social justice issues. Students engage in participatory art through connections with community partners — collaborate with Gem City Market — and the course culminates in a public exhibition. We’ve been doing this food sovereignty work since 2016.

MV: I think that there’s an appetite among business students for classes that are not just geared toward profit maximization. They are discovering that what they learn in their finance courses can also be applied outside of traditional finance careers, or to nonprofits or public policy institutes. 

GJ: The way art was taught to undergrads for so many years was hyperfocused on self-expression, with the artwork as the product of an individual genius of some kind. And business emphasizes the accumulation of wealth and success. Both fields have offered learning that is often isolated from the common good.

In 2011, I was working with Dr. Ruth Thompson-Miller from sociology to design the University’s first course on art and social practice. This is art that often takes place outside of museums and institutions, spaces where elitism or power systems tend to rule the day. Socially engaged art is meant to be accessible but also critical of systems of power. When I started working at UD, social justice wasn’t necessarily the term I’d use alongside social practice, which we often framed as institutional critique. But in my 13 years here, it’s become central to the way I see and do art and education.

MV: I came to UD in 2013 with a research agenda on the volatility of financial markets with a special interest in international securities. Eventually, I reached a point where every research idea I had seemed like a chip from the same old block. 

When the pandemic put us all in lockdown, I was invited to be part of a virtual teach-in organized by professor Kelly Johnson in religious studies. I prepared a lecture on how the pandemic could make income and wealth inequality evident to society at large and influence social change in the future. The message I was trying to convey is that this massive disruption in our lives could be our opportunity to rethink and redo our world, with the common good at its core. I’ve taught the course Finance for the Common Good three times since I proposed it in 2021, and last semester we had a wait list. Half of my students are from business, but the other half is from sport management, political science and even premed and human rights.

GJ: In the diversity and social justice course I’m currently teaching, History of Photography, about half my students are from art and the other half are from business or engineering. It’s interesting to have this mix of students learning and working together on projects. With cross-disciplinary work, we try to stretch our students …

MV: And sometimes they are like rubber bands — they stretch, and they snap right back. In my class, I ask students to write personal reflections on the ethical dilemmas they will face as citizens and future corporate managers. Some of the students use this time for self-reflection and come up with their own sets of values. I have other students who write as if they’re trying to guess what would get them a good grade. There’s no right or wrong opinion — I want them to consider all points of view and elaborate arguments they believe in, recognizing that their opinions might change over time. They are still shifting for me, and even now, every time something new happens, I add one more data point to what I know — and then I have to work on my belief system again. For our students, this is just the beginning of a lifelong process of learning.

A version of this article appears in print in the Spring 2025 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 22. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE