Since “Faith and Community” was published in the summer of 2024, it has been a joy to share the findings with congregations in Little Rock, with colleagues around the world, and with the broader public. For a full list of media coverage and book events, check out this post on our project website. Here, I want to share some of my favorite highlights.
I am a political scientist, who studies religion, and I also happen to be a mom to a fantastic 11-year-old boy. So when I heard about new polling on differences between Democrats and Republicans on the most important values to teach our children, it was like hitting the data trifecta. Statistics on religion, politics, AND parenting? Yes, please.
Unsurprisingly, there were some sharp partisan differences in the most important values Republicans and Democrats want to teach our children. But as someone whose community-based research on religion has meant attending a number of religious services from various denominations, I couldn’t help but be struck by the results. Democrats want to teach children to “treat others as they would like to be treated” whereas Republicans want to teach children to have “faith in God.” Independents are in the middle, as per usual, but leaning more towards the “Golden Rule” side of things.
By Dr. Glazier’s Religious Freedom Calderwood Seminar Class
This article is a teaching experiment. In spring 2024, I am teaching in a way I never have before. Although the content is familiar–religious freedom–the format is totally new. I am teaching a Calderwood Seminar, an upper level course where students work in a collaborative environment to take turns writing and peer editing public-facing pieces. The Calderwood model was started at Wellesley College and focuses on preparing students to write for real-life situations.
To mark International Women’s Day (March 8, 2024), the students in our class have collaboratively written the following piece about local and global restrictions on women’s clothing choices, restrictions which are often based in religion. I hope you enjoy and learn from their efforts!
Continue ReadingLast fall I got the kind of random surprise that sometimes comes into the lives of professors: my study abroad class to Morocco had been cancelled for obscure reasons related to university bureaucracy. Now, not only would I have to tell a bunch of disappointed students that they wouldn’t get to ride camels after all, but I also had a hole to fill in my schedule.
Before I knew what hit me, I was assigned an online section of a course I had never taught before: American National Government. Determined to do my best, I picked a textbook (the one my seasoned colleague recommended) and got to work preparing a brand-new class.
Continue ReadingAfter a successful trip last summer, we are heading back to Spain! This year we are hitting Madrid, Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, and Almuñécar for our class on “Islam and Migration in Contemporary and Historical Spain.” In this blog, the students will be contributing one post each to document our journey and all we learn along the way.
By Rebecca Glazier and Matthew Pietryka
This post originally appeared on the Active Learning in Political Science Blog. You can view the original post here: https://activelearningps.com/2023/05/08/engaging-students-through-collaborative-research-projects/.
Many professors are struggling to engage their students, who are often disengaged and burned out. To address these issues and improve student retention, universities are increasingly turning to edtech solutions or big data—everything from predictive analytics to chatbots in discussion boards. These remedies tend to be far removed from students’ daily lives. In contrast, as professors, we are with students in the classroom every day. And this experience often prepares us to know best how to engage our students.
Continue ReadingI am about to depart for the 2023 Teaching and Learning Conference of the American Political Science Association, which I have the great pleasure of co-chairing with Young-Im Lee of California State University-Sacramento. The theme this year is “Re-Energizing Political Science Education: Innovations and New Opportunities.” As we start to feel like the crisis period of the pandemic is over, many of us are also ready to start feeling re-energized when it comes to teaching and learning! The TLC has a great track format that allows people to really connect with one another and get deep into teaching topics that they care about—from civic education to simulations. I have found this format to be really engaging and energizing in the past.
Continue ReadingLast week it was my privilege to present some recent work from the Little Rock Congregations Study at the American Political Science Association Conference, the largest annual conference for political scientists. It was wonderful to see friends and colleagues, hear about some great ongoing research and get some good feedback on my own work. But one question that I have been pondering ever since the conference is: what exactly is the line between research and advocacy? And where should my work fall?
Last night, I got to see my students sit shoulder to shoulder with community leaders, including Little Rock’s Mayor Frank Scott, Jr., on a panel about improving religious tolerance in our city. They organized, participated in, moderated, and advertised the panel after returning from a study abroad course I taught this summer in Spain.
In May, 2022, the Chronicle of Higher Education invited me and five other experts to contribute to a forum on solving the student disengagement crisis. The full forum is behind a paywall here: https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-solve-the-student-disengagement-crisis, but you can read my contribution below. For me, the most important thing we can do is build authentic human connections with our students–in both our online and our face-to-face classes.
