Message from the Professor

Authors

Karin Aguilar-San Juan, Macalester CollegeFollow

Abstract

Teaching and learning in times of global social crises demands a compassionate, trauma-aware approach. This Fall 2020 American Studies seminar, composed of seven undergraduate students, emphasized reflection and a heart-centered, community-based writing practice. The essay contextualizes the seminar in terms of the global pandemic, racist police violence, and the 2020 U.S. elections. Excerpts from student writing help to show the complex and intriguing backstory behind the seven essays presented in Tapestries 2021. It turns out that the culminating experience of a senior capstone project can be much richer when it develops out of a community-based experience, rather than an individualist or competitive one.

Author Biography

Karín Aguilar-San Juan teaches American Studies at Macalester College. She is co-editor with Frank Joyce of The People Make the Peace: Lessons from the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (Just World Books, 2015).

Recommended Citation

Aguilar-San Juan, Karin (2021) "Message from the Professor," Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/tapestries/vol10/iss1/2

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.