SUNY Fredonia has designated its first Diversity: Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice courses – ENGL 274: Social Justice and the Written Word and ENGL 296: American Identities – that have been recast to be in step with the new system-wide SUNY General Education Framework.
Diversity: Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice joins Communication, Mathematics and Natural Sciences as four required SUNY General Education Knowledge and Skills Areas that will apply to first-time students entering all undergraduate degree programs in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Courses in the Diversity knowledge/skills area will examine the historical and contemporary societal factors that shape the development of individual and group identity involving race, class and gender. Students will analyze the role that complex networks of social structures and systems play in the creation and perpetuation of the dynamics of power, privilege, oppression and opportunity. The principles of rights, access, equity and autonomous participation will also be applied to past, current or future social justice action.
“Both courses were already existing, longstanding courses; we just transformed them to meet the new SUNY General Education requirement. They were completely redesigned from the ground up.” - Dr. Bruce Simon
ENGL 274: Social Justice and the Written Word, to be taught by Department of English Associate Professor Saundra Liggins in the fall semester, studies the ways that writers and others use the written word as a form of social critique and to effect social change.
ENGL 296: American Identities, to be taught by Department of English Associate Professor Bruce Simon in the fall semester, explores the historical construction of American gender, of ethnicity/race and class as well as their present status and literary and cultural representations.
“Both courses were already existing, longstanding courses; we just transformed them to meet the new SUNY General Education requirement,” Dr. Simon explained. “They were completely redesigned from the ground up,” added Simon, who previously taught American Identities nine times.
For example, in American Identities, all but one of the required readings are new. Assigned readings, student projects and assignments have been adapted to meet the learning outcomes as outlined in the SUNY General Education Framework. Recent trends and events that influence and reveal the infrastructures of American identifies are placed in a broad historical, political, legal, social, cultural and economic context in the course.
“My focus is on the ways in which fiction and non-fiction, speeches and music were integral to the Civil Rights Movement.” - Dr. Saundra Liggins
Dr. Liggins, who has taught Social Justice and the Written Word several times, indicated her focus is on the ways in which fiction and non-fiction, speeches and music were integral to the Civil Rights Movement.
To fit into the new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion requirement, Social Justice and the Written Word has been modified to more explicitly include discussions and readings that will allow students to discuss how systems of power and privilege are formed in society and how individuals and groups of people have been kept out of the civic process, Liggins explained.
“My focus is on the ways in which fiction and non-fiction, speeches and music were integral to the Civil Rights Movement,” Liggins said. Every instructor who teaches the class can tailor the focus to their interest.
Other faculty will teach the courses in future semesters.
Both American Identities and Social Justice and the Written Word had been previously placed in the Global Perspectives and Diversity theme in the previous version of Fredonia Foundations. The two courses were revamped by Liggins and Simon, utilizing feedback from additional English faculty as well as from Department of History Associate Professor Jennifer Hildebrand, who also serves as Director of Curriculum and Director of General Education.
