Title
Assistant Professor of Geography
School Name
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Department
Department of Social Sciences and History
Engagement Description
Student food and/or housing insecurity
Campus worker labor conditions and rights
University purchasing contracts; democracy and governance of decisions about campus food options and their justice/sustainability implications
Creation of a campus community garden; hydroponics fish and food lab site; and/or community kitchen that could be integrated with social sciences, environmental sciences, and environmental studies curriculum
Creation of a campus composting facility
Any of these issues as they apply to the broader community in which the campus is situated (North Jersey area)
Federal or state policies that influence access to land and water resources for food production, laws and policies that influence conditions for workers in the food system
Experience
I have taught social action in a couple of different contexts, in both cases focusing on food system activism and policy. My experience teaching social action to date has largely focused on teaching students about research methods they can apply to issues that affect them, with the benefit that they developed confidence and public speaking abilities associated with sharing their findings and prescriptions for change. Teaching students how to implement a social action campaign is something I am eager to learn.
From 2015-2018, I designed my dissertation fieldwork in southern, rural Mexico to involve a participatory action research component in which high school and undergraduate students from two rural communities diagnosed food system issues affecting them and developed proposals and concrete actions for how to address flawed policies at various scales of collective action. (For example, in one of the communities, the high school students created a school kitchen and presented the dishes they had developed with local ingredients in an exposition to the broader school and community. In the other, the students wrote policy and action proposals for individual and collective action to implement food system change.) These projects were connected to the national food policy analysis that I also conducted as part of my dissertation.
In 2021, I developed a course for Arizona undergraduates called “Food Justice, Ethics and Activism” that was explicitly focused on forms of social action to change the food system. Students studied the mainstream food movement in the US that has rested largely on consumer choices for consumer health and environmental sustainability in counterpoint to diverse strands of the food justice movement that have focused on various forms of land, labor, health, and environmental justice, as well as self-reliance in marginalized and oppressed communities. The social action component of the course involved students working collectively to develop a resea
Interest
I am interested in learning specific tools like the social action model described on the Teaching Social Action Initiative webpage and drawing lessons from others’ experiences with teaching social action. Generally, I am interested in using my courses to empower students to develop confidence, public speaking abilities, awareness of their capacity to make change, and motivation to engage with others in social change-making. The undergraduate population at my (future) university is highly diverse and would be able to apply social action tools to their own life experiences in powerful ways.
How did you hear about opportunity
An email forwarded from my PhD advisor, Diana Liverman.
When Taught
Fall 2024, Social and Environmental Action
Course Plan
Existing Course
Community Engagement
Social Action
Sub-Group
Environment & Sustainability