On Thursdays this past semester, students filed into the JKM Library for the inaugural IND130 class a.k.a. the Social Activism Institute. Led by Associate Director of Student Engagement, Emily Fidago, and developed in partnership with the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics, the Social Activism Institute is a crash course in exactly what it sounds like: service, civic work, and social advocacy. And as an added perk, students receive a veritable tour of career possibilities thanks to each week’s guest lecturers.

The course aims to empower students with a definition of what it means to be engaged citizens as well as the ability to recognize unbiased media and to articulate knowledge about policy issues. The inaugural curriculum featured a variety of Chatham professors and guest speakers, ranging from councilwomen to nonprofit leaders. Each lesson played out in two-week segments; take weeks 6 and 7 for example. On week 6, Associate Professor of Communication, Dr. Katie Cruger, instructed students on how to hone their media literacy by way of Twitter. During the following week, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter and adjunct professor at Chatham, Sara Baucknecht, discussed what a career in media literacy can look like.

First, Dr. Cruger asked students to assess whether specific tweets were useful sources and shared her key takeaways for media literacy:

1) Assess your own biases

2) Consider the publication’s credibility

3) Explore the author’s positioning and biases

4) Recognize the global forces influencing any click-bait content you’re seeing

5) Assess a specific source cited in an article

6) Don’t spread content without doing your due diligence

7) Kindly but firmly correct what you know to be inaccurate

And in Week 7, students held these tenets up to Baucknecht’s journalistic philosophy: “I pretend I'm holding a mirror up to the community. What I see reflected back to me in that mirror is what I strive to write. When I look in the mirror, I don't see a bunch of people who look the same, or have the same gender, background, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. In my coverage I strive to incorporate a diversity of voices and life experiences.”

As the classroom’s most consistent presence besides the students, Fidago cites the post-lecture Q&A sessions as her favorite part of the class:

“I was excited to see how engaged the students were with every speaker and to hear the well-prepared questions that they asked. We had great discussions with the guest speakers.”

And it’s true. In Bauknecht’s class, the students pepper her with smart and tough questions. One student asks what’s being done to improve the diversity of student experiences represented in Chatham’s student newspaper, The Communique. As the newspaper advisor, Bauknecht notes that including more diverse representation is an ongoing work in progress. Another student asks her to reflect on her favorite beat to cover; Bauknecht replies: “I'm interested in people's stories, that's what really resonates with me as a journalist. Writing about someone who has never been written about before, that means a lot to me.”

Fidago plans to improve the class next Spring with insight from this past semester’s students. “Our speaker line-up for this semester was pretty homogenous so one of my goals for next year is to make sure that we have a more diverse slate of speakers and more representation,” says Fidago. Interested students? Stay tuned for this course in Spring 2021.

Curious about other opportunities to hone your leadership and civic engagement skills at ChathamU? Check out the Office of Student Engagement’s webpage.

Inside the Social Activism Institute