When I first saw the flyer about Deliberative Citizenship Initiative, I immediately knew that it was something I wanted to learn more about and get involved with. At that time, the college I was working for had just gotten out of the ICU: it had successfully secured funding from the state to keep its doors open, after years of financial distress. As a sociologist with a law background, I am dedicated to teaching and learning how to “productively engage with one another on difficult and contentious issues facing our community and society” (DCI website).
Every semester, I teach an introductory level course in sociology – Sociology 101. This is a required course for all sociology major students and a popular class in the core curriculum. Even with a short amount of time into my career as a professor (about 3 years now), I have found that the SO101 class is the hardest course to teach. One of the reasons is that the difference in background and life experience of individuals can have so much impact on their perspectives and opinions that students and educators have difficulty engaging in meaningful and productive conversations on almost any given topic. Especially as an international scholar, a woman, and a racial minority at a small liberal arts institution, I often felt pushback in the classroom: “… a Chinese is teaching Marx…”; “… she cannot get over her personal experiences…”; “a woman is teaching Feminist theory”; “too liberal…”; “a brainwashing class” (these are selected quotes from course evaluations).
Although I can’t completely change how students view me, I know there is room for me to be a better professor who can teach those controversial topics in a more productive fashion. Thus, I joined the DCI’s 2023-2024 faculty fellows program — the Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative — and decided to construct the SO101 course in spring 2024 as a deliberative course.
Based on the original framework of this course, I modified and added three components: 1) I revised the grading rubric of the Interview Project and put more emphasis on the deliberation section in the final paper; 2) I added a Townhall Meeting Activity with a full deliberation session in class; and 3) I took advantage of having a TA in the classroom to provide additional feedback to students’ deliberation performance, such as in-class discussions.
What wasn’t in my plan was that in March 2024, during spring break, my college announced that it will close its doors permanently at the end of the spring term because it failed to get the money from the state (yes, it was a chaotic story of how we should have gotten the money but eventually didn’t). The college has been suffering from financial instability for over a decade. Still, this abrupt news over spring break hurt the morale on the entire campus, and it forced many faculty members, including me, to adjust our lesson plans to accommodate everyone’s needs.
I wanted to make sure that the course represented a feasible time demand for the students (given the fact that they have to deal with transferring, campus visits, decision making, and the stress associated with this news) while still ensuring the class would provide a meaningful learning experience for everyone. I therefore reduced the workload by requiring students to finish one of the two big remaining assignments (not closely related to deliberation) instead of doing both. And I had to be flexible with the attendance policy as many students had to miss class to do campus visits or taking mental breaks. Because of that, I decided to not do The Circle activity, which had been scheduled on the week after spring break.
I also extended the deadline of the final paper of the Interview Project (which was due the week after spring break). For the Interview Project, each student was required to pick a topic and interview someone who disagrees with them on this topic. This project was scheduled over five weeks, starting with dedicated class time on the rubric and brainstorming, followed by a literature review assignment, interview guide assignment, the actual interview (over spring break), and the final deliberation paper.
To my surprise, given everything else going on, students did well on their deliberation papers (they submitted it two weeks after the closure announcement). They were able to compare different perspectives on the controversial topic, synthesize the relationship between different ideas, investigate how people’s personal experiences shape their opinions, and find the common ground between them. Students especially emphasized the value of listening to one another’s story, and how that experience helped them develop empathy and compassion. From their reflections, students overall enjoyed the experience of the project, even while at the beginning some found it uncomfortable to discuss controversial topics with someone who disagrees with them.
The Townhall Meeting activity took place two weeks before the last day of class. I was so concerned about students’ participation that I decided to use a class period (a week before the activity) to prepare for this activity. My TA and I compiled a reading list, including the history of affirmative action and opinions from multiple perspectives. We created roles that would participate in this meeting: university admission staff, high school senior students, parents, residents in the community, college students, college professors, news reporter, and state legislators.
In the prep class, each student drew a role, independently developed the characteristics of the role, then prepared for making their statement based on the role. Students were given information about the procedure of the Townhall Meeting at the prep class as well. By the time we hosted the Townhall, students have already spent the entire class period (80 minutes) and an entire week preparing for their opening statement and questions.
On the day of activity, we set-up the classroom tables in a circle, which emphasized that everyone had an equal right to have their voices heard. My TA served as the moderator while I was taking notes and grading students on their 1) knowledge of the topic; 2) portrayal of their role; and 3) participation in the deliberation. A quarter of the class were absent, yet they prerecorded their statements to be played at the Townhall. My TA started the activity with some brief opening remarks, then played all the videos and let everyone in class give their opening statement. Then, the activity went into the cross-examination phase.
I was concerned that there would be dead silence because nobody was motivated to debate, with everything else going on. Again, to my surprise, students were eager to talk, express their opinions, and “play” their roles. My TA was busy pointing to people to speak as there were lots of hands raised. At the end, I found out that almost half of the students drew a role that they disagree with. They said that was an interesting yet rewarding experience to speak from the opposite side.
Overall, I think my deliberation course went well; or more precisely, better than I expected. If I were to do it again, I would spend a bit more time talking about deliberation pedagogy with my students, discuss more readings about deliberation, and watch a few videos of deliberation. I recognize that in most cases I won’t be able to have a TA in class, which will demand more time from me to prepare for the class activities and grade the low stake deliberatve discussions in class.
As I am concluding my deliberation course, my college – a small liberal art institution in the deep south of the United States – is winding down after 168 years of operation. Yet the debate and politics about liberal art education, private institutions and public funding will not end. With a bitter feeling and watery eyes, I must move forward.
Yingling Liu submitted this blog post at the end of the Spring 2024 semester while she was still at Birmingham-Southern College. She started an Assistant Professor of Sociology position at North Central College in the fall of 2024.
