Archives for 2016

My primary objective as a professor is to nurture my students’ ability to think critically. Given the rising tide of Islamophobia and the increasingly acerbic rhetoric targeting Muslims in national political discourses, however, I consider developing their empathy and compassion an additional imperative. In my courses, I have increasingly turned ...

If you can remember a time when you kept track of your appointments by writing them on a huge calendar pad that took up half of your desktop (and you know that “desktop” once referred to the upper surface of your desk), you might sympathize with the question, “Where on ...

On February 17 the Wabash community got word that police were on the campus looking for a suspect in a double murder. As it turned out, the suspect was an employee. He had taken a college van, and later ended his life as police were about to apprehend him. He was ...

Last year, I began asking students in my Islam, gender, and sexuality course to write a paragraph about what they think it means to study these topics from a humanistic perspective. It’s the first thing they write for the course. This year (as with last year), a good number ...

The intent of racism is to dehumanize. Consequently, a prevalent strategy of racism is to convince caring people that non-white people are lacking - lacking in values, lacking in character, lacking in abilities, lacking in that which makes for good community, good neighbors, good teachers. Racism teaches that non-white people ...