The Glazed Eyes of History: Reading the 1964 AIA-ACSA Teacher Conference

This position paper looks at the 1964 AIA -ACSA Teacher conference, one that offers us a window into the current anxieties of architectural history survey courses. The conference was organized at a time when PhD programs in Architectural History and Theory were emerging, with accompanying mid-century notions of disciplines with clear boundaries, objects of study and hierarchy of experts. The questions that were being asked were fundamental: What is Architectural History? What are its contents? How should it be taught? Who is an Architectural Historian? However, a closer look beneath the masculine bravado of the conference reveals many of the same symptoms that persist today: questions of ‘diversity’ of content, anxiety to be ‘relevant’ to students in professional programs and a tendency to leave unquestioned the tradition of ‘designo’. This paper journeys through these anxieties with the hope of bringing some of those in play today into sharper focus. Perhaps, it concludes, the work of architectural history might be what Spivak termed as a project of “Planetarity”, involving not merely a change in epistemological methods but an undoing of the social order of architectural history.

Increasing Motivation and Engagement in Advanced Literature Courses: Visions of Home: Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809; Elective Affinities)

Goethe’s complex novel, Die Wahlverwandtschaften, with its focus on enhancing the home and its landscape, an activity that ends in chaos and destruction, allows for a problematization of the Enlightenment credo of perfectibility of humanity and its environment. To increase student motivation, I prefer thematic courses instead of relying on survey courses. In particular, I favor topics that lend themselves to comparing and contrasting the students’ contemporary experience with the historical context. Creating a link between the past and the present, thus offering both familiarity and alterity, facilitates access to the respective theme. At the same time, employing typical pedagogies used in the beginning language courses (images, activities beyond questions, worksheets, games) also in the advanced language, literature, and culture courses like the one described here, fosters stronger engagement with the literary text. This fourth-year course, taught in German, meets our “Learning Goals”, emphasizes transferable skills, and contributes to project-based learning.

Decorating Up a Few Acres of the Rocky Mountains

In this chapter, the authors explore the development of a partnership between undergraduate art history students at an art and design college and educators at a historic house museum in Denver, CO. From this partnership, the museum team created authentic opportunities for student voice in three different art history survey courses. In these classes, students engaged in practical applications of art historical research and created original objects of art, while the college provided resources and audience to support museum programming and development. Here, the authors discuss how these projects developed into a lasting and mutually beneficial partnership for continued socially engaged art history and design opportunities for students.

Teaching Methods in Undergraduate Introductory Economics Courses: Results From a Sixth National Quinquennial Survey

This article presents the first report of basic findings from the 2020 online administration of the sixth national quinquennial survey on teaching and assessment methods. Focusing on the teaching methods in introductory economics courses (i.e., principles and survey courses), the authors find that very little has changed in the past quarter-century. The typical instructor in introductory courses is predominantly a male, Caucasian, with a PhD. “Chalk and Talk” remains the preferred method of instruction in introductory courses, along with the use of textbooks. The use of “student(s) with student(s)” discussions in the classroom, as well as cooperative learning/small-group assignments, has increased since 2010. Lessons, activities, and references that address diversity, inclusion, or gender issues, however, are almost never used in introductory economics courses. JEL Classifications: A20, A22

IV. Pastor Aeternus at 150

Kristin Colberg's fine essay in the December 2019 issue of Horizons clearly lays out the social, historical, and theological context for Pastor Aeternus. The year 1870 was a tumultuous, difficult, even dangerous, time for the Roman Catholic Church as it dealt with rationalism, challenges to secular as well as religious authority, new scientific ideas, and the loss of its own political power. When I have taught historical survey courses, I always stress the significance of context, and Pastor Aeternus is no exception. I also ask my students, when reading about controversial issues, to ask the question: “What is each position trying to protect?” Clearly, Pastor Aeternus is trying to protect the church's independence from secular powers, from perceived errors, and from forces of disunity both in society and in the church itself.

But Which One is Right?: Using Competing Interpretations of Easter Island to Teach Historiographical Thinking

Many history education scholars argue that high school and college history students should not just learn content—information about “what happened” in the past—but also learn how to “do” history. Thus, students should hone various skills to become more mature historical thinkers, researchers, and writers. One such skill is what might be called “historiographical thinking,” which (among other capacities) involves the ability to grasp, compare, and assess competing historical interpretations of a given topic. This article offers theoretical justification for teaching historiographical thinking in survey courses, and then discusses a multi-day lesson built around two competing explanations of purported societal collapse on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). In this lesson, students practice deconstructing competing arguments, identifying key points of disagreement between opposing perspectives, and determining which interpretation is most compelling. In particular, the lesson emphasizes the importance of identifying an author’s agenda, and how a scholar’s underlying motives might compromise the reliability of their findings. Thus, this article offers a practical, concrete example of how to teach historiographical thinking in the high school and college classroom.

A restructured freshman history course: The evolution of a librarian’s role

In 2012 the history department at the University of Oklahoma (OU) received a mandate from the university’s president to overhaul its U.S. history survey courses. Part of the mandate was that only tenured or tenure-track faculty would teach the survey, and though the classes would be large (around 200 students), there would also be required discussion sessions led by graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). Writing and critical thinking were also to be incorporated. The department decided to fulfill this mandate by reconstructing the survey classes around primary source-based research and looked to other departments on campus, such as the Center for Teaching Excellence, the Expository Writing Program, and the University Libraries, for support. This article describes how the librarian for history has worked with numerous stakeholders to support this ambitious and constantly evolving project, which attempts to bring historical inquiry to the freshman level.

First Impressions: A Review of Diversity-related Content on North American LIS Program Websites

This study explores library and information science (LIS) program websites from a recruitment and marketing standpoint and sheds light on the availability of diversity - related content. LIS and higher education literature suggests that the Internet and program websites are crucial when it comes to prospective students’ graduate school selection. Using Berelson’s (1952) quantitative content analysis technique, the researchers examined faculty profiles, diversity statements, diversity-related courses, funding opportunities, achievements, and student organizations on program websites. The data indicates that, collectively, LIS programs are successful in sharing information on funding as well as highlighting faculty scholarship related to diversity. Greater emphasis could be placed on crafting and displaying diversity statements; designing, offering, and listing diversity - related courses beyond survey courses; consistently showcasing diversity-related achievements and events; and encouraging and supporting diversity-related student groups. This research has implications for fostering more strategic diversity-related initiatives.

Manufacturing Shintō as a “World Religion”

How is Shintō presented in Anglo-American world religions textbooks? While not included in the earliest of such survey courses, it regularly appears in such texts from the early 20th century to the present. Why is Shintō included as one of “great” or “world” religions given how greatly it differs from the likes of Christianity and Islam? Textbook authors include Shintō by constructing an image of it that reflects their own model of world religions, an image that is also based on the “Shintō” that Meiji Japanese officials and scholars invented for their own political-ideological purposes. The standard portrayal of Shintō in Western textbooks has remained more or less the same for a century: It is described as (1) an archaic religion; (2) centered on Japanese imperial mythology; (3) nature worship; (4) apolitical, emphasizing personal piety at shrines. While the most recent editions have tried to incorporate new scholarship in their portrayal, they still rely a world religions model of Shintō that is seriously misleading, failing to adequately present Shintō’s complexities as a tradition.