Second Lecture of the 2024 First-Year Studies Lecture Series

First-Year Studies, a staple of the academic experience at Lawrence University since 1945, continues to evolve. Beginning in Fall 2024, the course required for all first-year students will undergo a significant realignment, all aimed at making the program more focused while keeping its intent of a collective introduction to the liberal arts. The changes stem from recommendations made by a faculty task force that began its work in spring of 2022. It was approved in a faculty vote in May 2023. The revamped course, now lasting one term instead of two, will have a theme that stitches together the seven works to be studied. “Water” will be the theme for the next four years, then give way to a new theme. The writing curriculum has been reshaped with a sequence aimed at better preparing students for effective analytical writing. Works covered in this lecture: Flood narratives (Gilgamesh and Noah), High Water Everywhere by Charley Patton, 1929 (Delta Blues tradition), Blood dazzler: poems by Patricia Smith, 2008

Building Food Agency in the Fox Valley: A Program Evaluation Case Study at the Building For Kids in Appleton, Wisconsin

The Building For Kids children’s museum in Appleton, Wisconsin, as a part of their recent initiative to promote food and nutrition education in the Fox Valley, developed and administered cooking classes geared towards families with young children. This honors project evaluates these workshops through the theoretical lens of food agency, an emerging paradigm in food systems scholarship. Following a mixed-methods design, this project utilizes group interviews, systematic behavior observations, and the Cooking and Food Provisioning Action Scale survey to identify barriers and supports of home cooking among Fox Valley parents, recommend areas of opportunity for future workshops, and explore the role of children in the meal making process. Time constraints emerged as a major barrier to meal prep among participants. Many participants articulated the difficulties of involving children in meal preparation, but for others, children’s involvement in meal preparation was a support of home cooking and often reduced time constraints. The workshops demonstrated to parents that their children can perform many meal prep tasks, and some children have become more engaged in the meal making process as a result. Participants wished the workshops were expanded to incorporate more cooking tasks for children and include more nutritional and organizational advice for adults

Inseparable

https://lux.lawrence.edu/artgallery_se2024/1013/thumbnail.jp

A.M., P.M.

https://lux.lawrence.edu/artgallery_se2024/1005/thumbnail.jp

A Tale of Two Austins: Negotiating Segregation in the Sapphic Community of Austin, Texas

Past research on intersections of race and sexuality have been limited to heterosexual people and gay men, with limited research on racial dynamics in lesbian communities. Through an exploratory analysis of 10 in-depth interviews, this qualitative research study examines how racism and racial segregation are experienced by people of different races in the sapphic and lesbian community of Austin, Texas. In this paper I analyze results through Bonilla-Silva’s theory of Color-Blind Racism, May’s theory of Integrated Segregation, and Feagin’s Theory of the White Racial Frame. I argue that there is a broad pattern of self-actualizing segregation among my participants, whereby segregation of experience leads to reinforced social segregation. As a result of this finding, I call for a re-evaluation of how to respond to ongoing segregation in the post-Jim Crow era United States, one that considers both the subversive agency of people of color and the oppressive power of white people in social spaces, and how the politics of sexuality further complicated Color-Blind Racism