by Patricia Romero, Adjunct Faculty, Humanities

This past academic year I had the opportunity to be part of the 2024-2025 Faculty Learning Committee (FLC) Globalizing Curriculum cohort. As a cohort, we would meet over Zoom and each meeting began with a presentation on how the presenters are globalizing their curriculum. The presentations were put together in collaboration with UT Hemispheres and guided by the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By the end of the year, we would present our final projects on how we will be globalizing our curriculum. 

There were a total of eight presentations and the two presentations that have stuck with me were titled “Teaching the SDGs: Peeking Behind the Data Curtain” by Kate Weaver and “Demure Development: Nepal, Aid and Brain Drain in the 21st Century” by Heather Hindman. Weaver’s presentation stuck out to me because she reminded me that it is important to see how the data is being collected and ask, “how do we measure success?” This was a good reminder to continue to critically analyze the data we are coming across and to peek behind the curtain. Hindman’s presentation demonstrated the power of storytelling by reminding us that stories are data. But, you cannot share a story in a brazen manner, you have to do it in a demure manner. You should do the story justice by making sure the story has been handled with care. Someone has shared their story with you, and you should care for it as your own. These two presentations stuck out to me because they were discussing how to implement a global perspective with the goal of stimulating inquiry, building critical thinking skills, and building a sense of social responsibility for us to use in our teaching. These are the skills that I hope my students will take away from Humanities.

For my FLC project, I decided to globalize a small portion of one of my lessons in Humanities by using SDG #4 (Quality Education) and SDG #5 (Gender Equality) to guide my planning. Humanities courses cover a variety of landmarks of humanity from Prehistory to present day, and one landmark that I will be globalizing is the Malleus Maleficarum (Witches’ Hammer, 1484). The Malleus Maleficarum was a witch-hunting manual that caused harm by wrongfully convicting folks–especially women–who were believed to be an easy target for the devil. Since I want the students to stimulate inquiry, build critical thinking skills, and build a sense of social responsibility, I think a good way to do this is by watching a documentary that could help the students connect these themes in our modern-day world. I hope to achieve this by having the students watch the documentary Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four (2016). The documentary shares the story of four Latina lesbians from San Antonio, TX. who are wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting two young girls at the tail end of the Satanic panic in the 1990s. Fifteenth-century Northern Europe seems far away, and I would like to bring the lens locally first so we can fully understand how the Malleus Maleficarum has shaped how we understand who was being accused of witchcraft. I am planning on giving the students a sheet that includes guiding discussion questions so they can take notes while they view the film. Afterwards, I will give the students some time to discuss with a partner before we dive into the big group discussion.  

One of the great things about working at Austin Community College is that I can continue to improve my teaching skills by participating in programs like the FLC Globalizing Curriculum cohort. It was great to be able to meet folks in other departments and share teaching strategies or just to hear how their semester is going. My experience with the FLC has been great and I hope you can make it happen for yourself in the future.