Following a competitive application process, the Common Academic Program (CAP) is pleased to announce that Youssef Farhat has been selected as the inaugural Coordinator of the Diversity & Social Justice (DSJ) component. In this role, Youssef will be an ambassador for this CAP component and champion its role as an integral part of the University of Dayton’s distinctive undergraduate education. He will work with all of the academic units, campus partners, and the CAP Office to enhance the DSJ course offerings, integrate the DSJ component more fully in the intentional and developmental curriculum, lead campus conversations about this essential dimension of undergraduate learning, and coordinate efforts to assess student learning in this area. 

Youssef brings a wide range of valuable experiences to this role. He is a dedicated and passionate teacher, offering a range of courses in Political Science, Social Science 200, and the Malawi Research Practicum. Youssef is deeply committed to his students and their growth and development, especially in the area of diversity and social justice. His service in the Human Rights Center, since 2013, has equipped him to build and develop efforts from the ground up. In the HRC, Youssef worked across a range of disciplines and coordinated many projects, including communications and outreach strategies, the Social Practice of Human Rights (SPHR) conference, and the Malawi Research Practicum on Rights and Development. He serves on a series of university working groups and committees, and is engaged with practitioners from public, private, and nonprofit organizations in the Dayton region and global networks in areas of social justice and community agency. These roles and experiences make him extremely well suited to take on this role.

Prior to joining UD, Youssef worked in development spaces with grassroot NGOs as well as UNDP and USAID in Beirut, Lebanon as a multilingual researcher and coordinator for a series of programs in areas of education, social and economic rights, sustainability, and gender and LGBTQ+ rights. 

Youssef holds an undergraduate degree in public administration from Notre Dame University of Louaize (Beirut, Lebanon) and a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Dayton.

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A month filled with barbeques and baseball games, June is also an important month for the LGBTQ+ community. Queer people and their allies celebrate Pride Month with festivals, parades, and artistic reflections on the progress made toward political inclusion since the Stonewall Riots in 1969. We’ve come a long way since then. In 2015, the US Supreme Court legalized marriage equality with the Obergefell v. Hodges decision -- a case that originated in Cincinnati! 

At the University of Dayton, community is a key institutional value. Although we do not collect demographic information on the undergraduate population’s sexual identities, the American College Health Association estimates that 10% of college students identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, asexual, pansexual, or questioning. Moreover, the numbers may be higher because the development of sexual identity is in flux over the course of a young person’s life. Yet regardless of whether students are out and proud, closeted, or questioning, they are still likely to be affected by microaggressions and bias incidents that occur on campus.

In Spring 2020, we enrolled in Dr. Jamie L. Small’s sociology class on Sex, Crime, and Law. Our discussions ranged from domestic violence to mass incarceration to pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. For our final project, we were tasked to develop a podcast that investigated broader course themes. We brainstormed ideas at the beginning of the semester, and then Dr. Small placed in groups based on shared interests. The unexpected campus closure in March created new barriers to making a podcast -- a project that neither of us had done before! After consulting with Dr. Small, though, we decided to continue with the podcast because documenting the micro- and macro-aggressions that LGBTQ+ students experience on campus is really important work. 

We learned a lot and would like to share the podcast and some of those findings with you.

Spectrum is UD’s LGBTQ+ student organization. The group is comprised of dedicated students who strive to help make other LGBTQ+ students on campus know they are safe to be themselves, while being transparent about the challenges. Spectrum provides aid, support, and a safe space for LGBTQ+ students and their allies. For instance, through one initiative “Know Your Rights,” Spectrum’s members learn about what microaggressions are on campus; how to report them; and the resources available to them. 

One moment of hostility for which Spectrum provided critical support occurred last fall. Early in September, vandalizers ripped down rainbow flags -- symbols of solidarity and the queer community -- from the Spectrum South Ally House. The flags were later found in a nearby garbage can. Similar incidents happened two more times during the semester, and a memorial for Transgender Day of Remembrance was also vandalized.

President Eric Spina wrote an email to the campus community denouncing this bias-related vandalism. He wrote:

“We condemn this act as incompatible with our Catholic, Marianist values and our commitment to create an environment where all feel safe, supported, valued and respected. We are all called to safeguard the dignity of every person in thought, word and action, and to work together to strengthen our sense of community. This is an offense not only against certain members of our community but, indeed, an offense against the entire University community.”

While these kinds of bias-related incidents are noticeable on campus, microaggressions can be harder to see.

In the podcast, you will hear interviews that we conducted with Chloé Massie-Costales and Laura Hutchinson. They discuss their respective experiences with the LGBTQ+ community at UD. Chloé Massie-Costales is graduated this May with a degree with sociology, and during her time at UD, she was deeply involved with Spectrum. She helped us understand what bias-related incidents look like for students and how the campus climate regarding these incidents has changed over her five years on campus. Laura Hutchinson, also a UD alum, is coordinator of LGBTQ+ Support Services at the Brook Center. She explained the nuances of micro- and macro-aggressions and how bias-related incidents negatively impact LGBTQ+ students in higher education.

After talking with Chloé and Laura, we then discuss how Title IX, legal protection against discrimination on the basis of sex, does not explicitly extend to the LGBTQ+ community. We pivot to examine some of the policies that UD has in place to ensure its students are protected, whether it is in the Non Discrimination Statement or in policies such as the Chosen Name Policy.

We hope that our podcast can help listeners understand and learn about the bias-related incidents that can happen on any college campus. We hope that our listeners will become more aware of the different ways these violent incidents occur and how they can affect their peers, friends, and even family members. We hope to inform students of resources on our campus and what UD does to support them. We hope our listeners understand that using expressions such as, “That’s so gay” is harmful because it’s basically saying, “you are wrong.” 

No human is wrong. 

We also understand that social change is not something that happens overnight. While incredible strides have been made in the past few decades, it is clear that there is still so much to be done. But to be silent is to be complicit. By speaking out and educating others, we hope to make a change in people’s everyday lives. 

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Authors and Podcast Creators in Sociology 329 "Sex, Crime, and Law" course:

• Jessie Starkweather'22 (She/Her/Hers) is a Criminal Justice major
• Chris Reynolds'21 (They/Them/Theirs) is a Computer Science major

Dr. Jamie Small is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work and a Human Rights Center Faculty Research Fellow at the University of Dayton.

During the 2020-21 academic year, UD students might choose to examine the intersection of communication and cybersecurity in CMM 453 or learn ways to apply Lean Six Sigma management principles to engineering and beyond in IET 408/ISE 408. 

The two classes, which were approved Feb. 28, are the 499th and 500th courses to be approved as part of the Common Academic Program (CAP), marking a key milestone for the undergraduate general education curriculum the University launched in 2013.

CAP was designed to engage the seven institutional learning goals — scholarship, faith traditions, diversity, community, practical wisdom, critical evaluation of our times and vocation — and aim to challenge students and faculty to link aspects of their own lives, majors and careers to a broader world. 

“The fact that we have had faculty create an average of 100 new CAP courses a year over the past five years is noteworthy," said Deb Bickford, associate provost for academic affairs and learning initiatives. “So many faculty have contributed to the evolution of CAP.”  

CAP courses encourage collaboration and innovation among faculty across disciplines to offer students educational experiences relevant to their interests and future goals. From the first 27 courses approved in 2012-13 to the 500th course, CAP courses are offered in all academic units. The Lean Six Sigma class recently approved, for example, is offered within the School of Engineering.

“As CAP was getting off the ground, we didn’t want it to be seen as the province of the College of Arts and Sciences,” said Michelle Pautz, assistant provost for the Common Academic Program. “We were intentional in engaging faculty and staff across academic units so they could see the value of integrating CAP in their teaching to advance student learning.”

CAP courses were unveiled in stages, starting by integrating the existing first-year humanities commons that included four 100-level courses in English, history, philosophy and religious studies for 12 total credit hours. An oral communication course and natural sciences component were also part of the first-year CAP requirement, together accounting for 10 total hours.

Second-year components include a writing seminar, and mathematics, social science and arts courses for 12 credit hours. In the latter years, students take various crossing boundaries components, including faith traditions, practical ethical action, inquiry and integrative courses that link classroom studies to a 21st century living and working environment. Advanced studies components in philosophical and/or religious studies and historical studies and a diversity and social justice component are also included.

CAP concludes with a major capstone course, typically in the final year.

Pautz, a political science professor, said she’s appreciated how CAP has influenced her own teaching by bringing a mix of students from a variety of majors together in her classes. Their questions from engineering, business or educational perspectives challenge her to think differently the material she presents for discussion. Some courses are team taught by faculty across disciplines, helping generate more opportunities for faculty and student learning.

“Whatever profession you pursue, you’re going to be working with people from a wide range of backgrounds,” Pautz said. “CAP prepares you more for the workforce, and life beyond UD.”

She cited the example of one premedicine major who took ANT 336 – Medical Anthropology: Rethinking Global Health. The course fits both the crossing boundaries integrative and diversity and social justice components, and the student said the class would help him gain a broader perspective about the needs of the patients he’d treat in his future medical practice. He appreciated the course’s lessons so much that he mentioned it on his medical school application, Pautz said.

CAP courses have four-year review cycles, enabling faculty and departments to revisit the fit of a course and its evolution for CAP components. 

“The fluidity of courses helps keep CAP fresh and relevant,” she said

In Fall 2018, the Provost’s Office, Ryan C. Harris Learning Teaching Center, and CAP Office launched a new grant program – CAP Course Improvement and Innovation: Post 4-Year Review – to support faculty who are working to improve some aspect of their CAP course related to insights gleaned during the review process. Associate Professor of History Haimanti Roy provided the following description of her grant project for HST 339.

In November 2018, when I received a CAP Course Improvement and Innovation: Post 4-Year Review grant to revise my course HST 339: Gandhi’s India, I had a somewhat clear idea of what I wanted to do with the course from that point forward. After all, I had written a successful grant proposal which seemed to support that idea. Plus, the initial proposal had included some easy fixes – changing the course title from Gandhi’s India to Gandhi, Nonviolence, and Resistance Around the World to better reflect the course content and reducing the number of course learning objectives, which would allow the course to achieve those objectives. The 4-Year Review process had been a timely reminder to get back to the drawing board, and I was eager to revise the course substantially. Further, it was clear to me that the course content was already aligned with the Diversity and Social Justice component in CAP, though HST 339 was initially approved only for Advanced Historical Studies.  I needed to do something so that students would also get DSJ credit for it. 

But this was as far as the easy part went. When I finally sat down to think through the process in the summer and fall of 2019, implementing the core of the revisions – creating a more experiential component for the course – in ‘real terms’ did not look that easy. I had proposed to develop course content which would be better aligned with the Institutional Learning Goals (ILGs) of Scholarship, Diversity, and Critical Evaluation of Our Times. To achieve these, I had planned to develop research ‘starter kits’ which would have individualized material for students to work on projects connected with histories of non-violence, passive resistance, and nationalisms on the one hand, and be able to incorporate themes of social and gender justice, race, law, and citizenship on the other hand. I am often asked by presses to review primary source collections/compendiums/ introductions to BIG topics which generally tend to compile a similar range of materials at one place, making them accessible to students. Some of these collections that I have reviewed were excellent and gave me the initial idea to do something similar for the course so that students would already have something to work with early in the semester.

However, this was quite ambitious on my part to think that I would be able to incorporate all of these into such starter kits. One of the key issues was the availability of visual material and primary sources in English that would reflect the global breadth of the course. The University Libraries don’t have access to all of the publications and materials I had hoped to use. Luckily for me, Gandhi’s writings (around 100 volumes) are available online and are in English, and UD has access to the London Times. I have also begun compiling my own personal collection of visual material, primary source documents, and secondary readings which I can share with students via Isidore. The library staff has been incredibly helpful in accessing material from the Center for Research Libraries, OhioLINK, Hathi Trust, etc. And thanks to the generosity of the CAP Leadership Team (CAPL) awarding the grant, I was able to purchase a few relevant DVD titles to plug the gap in visual materials. 

I have created two starter kits so far, and I hope to create at least four more in the coming months. During the semester, students develop three interrelated project submissions – annotated bibliography, introductory arguments, and draft – before the final project is due. I hope to use a staggered method to track the usefulness of these kits – are students using and further developing on the primary source materials listed in the kits? What new sources have they brought on their own to further their project and show off their research skills? Are they able to critically analyze these sources, and how are they developing a particular line of argument?  

I am still in the process of developing connections beyond the classroom with the Fitz Center for Leadership in Community and the Dayton Peace Museum. But I am also changing course from what I had proposed (as is the fate of all proposals!) – I am now hoping to develop a two-week Study Abroad component in South Africa (in collaboration with the Center for International Programs, CAS dean’s office and my department) that would give the students an immersive experience in the land of Mandela and Gandhi immediately after they have taken the semester-long course.