Classroom
Follow the Trash
When you're a freshman, especially if you're at a large university, sometimes it's hard to make important connections — not only among people, but also among subjects and ideas. Large lecture halls, broad-brush introductory courses, and thousands of new faces can contribute to a general sense of confusion. Sometimes, the academics don't really click until you gain more experience.
On one weekend last semester, the sight of five ambitious freshmen — huddled together around a slimy discarded tire that floated in a polluted pond on the far south side of Chicago — must have been strange, indeed. But the group was actually engaged in a new type of freshman academic experience designed to help them make those important connections right from the start of their studies.
"Gross!" one student remarked, staring at the filthy water.
On one weekend last semester, the sight of five ambitious freshmen — huddled together around a slimy discarded tire that floated in a polluted pond on the far south side of Chicago — must have been strange, indeed. But the group was actually engaged in a new type of freshman academic experience designed to help them make those important connections right from the start of their studies.
"Gross!" one student remarked, staring at the filthy water.
The first-year students were touring the vicinity of Altgeld Gardens, a Chicago housing project where many of the residents suffer from health problems, including near-epidemic respiratory problems, conjunctivitis, and an unusually high cancer rate. Many believe these problems relate directly to Altgeld's proximity to a large number of landfills, refineries, and waste and recycling facilities.
Seeing firsthand the significant health and ecological dilemmas facing an economically depressed neighborhood such as Altgeld is not usually on the academic roster for a typical wide-eyed first-year student. But these students have been freed from their lecture chairs, in the form of a first-year interest group, or FIG, centered on the theme of environmental justice.
The FIG program is designed to create a coherent experience by allowing groups of twenty or so students who live near each other, often in the same residence hall, to enroll in a specific grouping of three classes that revolve around a related theme. One of the classes acts as a central, synthesizing seminar, integrating the other two. Last semester, the second year for the new program, enrollment in thirteen FIGs — focused on a range of subjects — totalled 257 students. Next fall, nearly two dozen groups are planned.
Seeing firsthand the significant health and ecological dilemmas facing an economically depressed neighborhood such as Altgeld is not usually on the academic roster for a typical wide-eyed first-year student. But these students have been freed from their lecture chairs, in the form of a first-year interest group, or FIG, centered on the theme of environmental justice.
The FIG program is designed to create a coherent experience by allowing groups of twenty or so students who live near each other, often in the same residence hall, to enroll in a specific grouping of three classes that revolve around a related theme. One of the classes acts as a central, synthesizing seminar, integrating the other two. Last semester, the second year for the new program, enrollment in thirteen FIGs — focused on a range of subjects — totalled 257 students. Next fall, nearly two dozen groups are planned.
Students in FIGs are challenged by introduction to a problem that usually overlaps curricular borders. The environmental justice FIG, for example, included nineteen students, all of whom lived in Witte Hall and enrolled in Sociology 134: Problems of American Racial and Ethnic Minorities, and Chemistry 103: General Chemistry. Their central course was a geology and geophysics seminar, led by Professor Herb Wang '66.
Wang first became involved in environmental justice while attending a conference of the National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists in 2000. The topics discussed there, such as the lack of social resistance to landfill placement near city water wells, struck Wang as a perfect concept to anchor a FIG. While the concerns weren't widely publicized, he knew they required an interdisciplinary perspective to be understood.But it took work for the students to get that perspective. "At the beginning of the semester," says Wang, "they did not know what the term environmental justice meant."
Wang first became involved in environmental justice while attending a conference of the National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists in 2000. The topics discussed there, such as the lack of social resistance to landfill placement near city water wells, struck Wang as a perfect concept to anchor a FIG. While the concerns weren't widely publicized, he knew they required an interdisciplinary perspective to be understood.But it took work for the students to get that perspective. "At the beginning of the semester," says Wang, "they did not know what the term environmental justice meant."
The goal of all FIGs is to help freshmen integrate material from individual classes with their own ideas. Once students grasp the definition of racism in a sociology class, for example, they are encouraged to apply what they have learned about race to environmental issues, helping them to formulate new ideas that might be called "environmental justice" or "environmental racism." A good FIG leader selectively incorporates material from classes and creates room for students to make their own associations.
The intimacy of the programs helps students progress faster. "Academically, we're doing a lot better, because the program has a small feel to it. You don't feel lost," says Emily Eggebrecht x'06, one of the five who ventured to Chicago. "You make friends, and since we all have the same material and the same assignments, there's some competition that kind of pushes you."
As the end of the semester neared, Wang gave students the option to challenge themselves further by creating a service-learning project, instead of writing the required term paper. All of them chose the project. Wang was pleased, and the students weren't surprised, given their professor's style.
The intimacy of the programs helps students progress faster. "Academically, we're doing a lot better, because the program has a small feel to it. You don't feel lost," says Emily Eggebrecht x'06, one of the five who ventured to Chicago. "You make friends, and since we all have the same material and the same assignments, there's some competition that kind of pushes you."
As the end of the semester neared, Wang gave students the option to challenge themselves further by creating a service-learning project, instead of writing the required term paper. All of them chose the project. Wang was pleased, and the students weren't surprised, given their professor's style.
"He doesn't really care about the grading side (of a project)," remarks Brianna Cash x'06, another who made the Chicago trip. "He's more concerned about what you're getting out of it."
The projects students chose reflected their desire to share the connections they had made with outside communities. One group helped Wang write a proposal for a new environmental justice field course, which recently was granted funding from the university's new Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. The course will take students to Altgeld and other locations around the region this summer. Another group project polled fellow freshmen about the source of the energy they used, finding that 80 percent of those they asked had no idea where it came from.
The students who traveled to Altgeld Gardens chose their project after Wang suggested that they read Garbage Wars, a book that chronicles waste problems in Chicago. With the help of an upper-class student mentor, the group contacted Chicago community activist Cheryl Johnson, who works with People for Community Recovery, an organization that Johnson's mother, Hazel, formed in 1982. The group works to inform the public about the disproportionate impact of environmental pollutants on low-income minority communities such as Altgeld.
The projects students chose reflected their desire to share the connections they had made with outside communities. One group helped Wang write a proposal for a new environmental justice field course, which recently was granted funding from the university's new Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. The course will take students to Altgeld and other locations around the region this summer. Another group project polled fellow freshmen about the source of the energy they used, finding that 80 percent of those they asked had no idea where it came from.
The students who traveled to Altgeld Gardens chose their project after Wang suggested that they read Garbage Wars, a book that chronicles waste problems in Chicago. With the help of an upper-class student mentor, the group contacted Chicago community activist Cheryl Johnson, who works with People for Community Recovery, an organization that Johnson's mother, Hazel, formed in 1982. The group works to inform the public about the disproportionate impact of environmental pollutants on low-income minority communities such as Altgeld.
The students arranged to meet Johnson at the organization's office in Altgeld for a tour of the community and the surrounding waste facilities. While they wanted to document each site, the sheer number of polluted ponds, landfills, contaminated sites, and companies that have been fined for environmental violations became overwhelming. Keeping track of which site correlated to what problem and why became too much to absorb during their afternoon tour. Passing one cloudy pond, students counted three submerged cars, which didn't surprise Johnson, who has seen more than her share of abandoned belongings.
Back at the Altgeld offices, the group made plans to bring Johnson to a Madison teach-in as the culmination of their final project. A few weeks after their visit, Johnson joined the students in presenting their findings to an audience of community members, fellow students, faculty, and staff. The teach-in even inspired a student from another class to write a term paper on the same topic.
Back at the Altgeld offices, the group made plans to bring Johnson to a Madison teach-in as the culmination of their final project. A few weeks after their visit, Johnson joined the students in presenting their findings to an audience of community members, fellow students, faculty, and staff. The teach-in even inspired a student from another class to write a term paper on the same topic.
The students' experience demonstrates that the FIGs work, Wang says. Attacking broad concepts feeds into students' natural desire for action and encourages them to connect the dots they began plotting in the classroom. "Once you ask what happens to what you dispose of," Wang says, "you can follow the waste stream and find the people impacted.
"I felt the students were discovering something new for themselves," he says, adding that reading and classroom discussion about a topic can cover only so much ground, and that "getting out and seeing the actual situation in the field is highly educational."
— Josh Orton x'04
"I felt the students were discovering something new for themselves," he says, adding that reading and classroom discussion about a topic can cover only so much ground, and that "getting out and seeing the actual situation in the field is highly educational."
— Josh Orton x'04
Class Note — Social Chemistry
Chemistry 201: Environmental Chemistry and Ethnicity
From the same discipline-bending vein as Herb Wang's Environmental Justice FIG group (see story, above) comes this class, the first chemistry course at UW-Madison that also suits an ethnic-studies requirement. Cathy Middlecamp PhD'76, MS'84, director of the Chemistry Learning Center, designed the course to add real-life elements to the study of elements. The course focuses on the properties of uranium — and the social consequences of the U.S. government's push to mine it during World War II as fuel for nuclear weapons. Among the readings is If You Poison Us, an account of uranium mining on Navajo reservations in the American Southwest, showing how miners were exposed to contaminants and continue to suffer health problems today.
From the same discipline-bending vein as Herb Wang's Environmental Justice FIG group (see story, above) comes this class, the first chemistry course at UW-Madison that also suits an ethnic-studies requirement. Cathy Middlecamp PhD'76, MS'84, director of the Chemistry Learning Center, designed the course to add real-life elements to the study of elements. The course focuses on the properties of uranium — and the social consequences of the U.S. government's push to mine it during World War II as fuel for nuclear weapons. Among the readings is If You Poison Us, an account of uranium mining on Navajo reservations in the American Southwest, showing how miners were exposed to contaminants and continue to suffer health problems today.
Extra Credit
France's Loire Valley, sprinkled with farms, rural villages, and grand chateaux, is a perfect laboratory for students learning how to design diverse landscapes. Eight students spent two weeks exploring that rich land during winter break as part of a three-credit landscape architecture workshop, designed by professors Arnold Alanen and Janet Silbernagel and graduate student David Watts. The class made trips to the formal gardens of chateaux and observed rural French potager gardens, which residents rely on for daily supplies of vegetables and herbs. During the spring semester, the students are designing gardens for the tenth-century abbey that housed them, creating plots that weave historical, cultural, and monastic themes.
The School of Business is launching the nation's first MBA program in product management. Sparked by a $6.4 million gift from Scott Cook and Signe Ostby '75, MBA'77, who each began their careers as product managers, the program will prepare students to manage all aspects of a brand or line of products — jobs that are considered among the most upwardly mobile for new MBAs.
The School of Business is launching the nation's first MBA program in product management. Sparked by a $6.4 million gift from Scott Cook and Signe Ostby '75, MBA'77, who each began their careers as product managers, the program will prepare students to manage all aspects of a brand or line of products — jobs that are considered among the most upwardly mobile for new MBAs.
Powerful new software at the School of Human Ecology allows apparel design students to create intricate textile patterns and experiment with colors, textures, and other nuances of clothing design. Several faculty have retooled portions of classes to include the new software, called U4ia.
Graduate students are getting more help preparing to be teachers. A new unit, the Office of Outreach and Graduate Student Professional Development, provides opportunities to improve skills in writing, public speaking, Web and software development, administration, and ethics.
Graduate students are getting more help preparing to be teachers. A new unit, the Office of Outreach and Graduate Student Professional Development, provides opportunities to improve skills in writing, public speaking, Web and software development, administration, and ethics.
