Cultivating Change

Abstract

This article examines the teaching and learning experience of Cultivating Change, an upper-level undergraduate seminar at Connecticut College, a liberal arts college in the northeastern USA. I describe the goals, structure and activities of the course and assess the teaching and learning experiences in comparative and institutional context. In so doing I aim to: (1) chart the development of an interdisciplinary course linked to a project on beginning farmers, a curiously overlooked topic in food studies with a host of social, economic and policy implications; (2) describe and assess a transformative teaching and learning experience for me as professor and for students; and (3) identify the key elements of this active learning environment that might be profitably applied to the growing number of courses on food topics.

Keywords:

• beginning farmers
• pedagogy
• active learning
• food education

Acknowledgments

The Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching & Learning promotes a vibrant campus culture of reflexive pedagogy, one that has inspired me since my arrival on campus in 2008; director Michael Reder made available the Center’s extensive library and offered encouraging and constructive comments on an early version of the manuscript. Thanks to John Nugent of the Connecticut College Office of Institutional Research for the figures. Fred Kirschenmann, Sally Booth, Jonathan Deutsch and anonymous reviewers for Food, Culture, and Society also provided insightful commentary on the piece. Without the cooperation of local farmers, who generously gave of their limited time, this course would not have been possible. Finally, I thank the thirty-two students who enthusiastically participated in a course and research project ever in the making; in particular, I would like to acknowledge Zoe Lieb (‘13) and Phil Haynes (‘14) who served so ably as research assistants and, later, after graduation, provided comments on a draft of this article.

Notes

1. The course was cross-listed with Environmental Studies. After the first year it would be recognized as one of our methods intensive courses, another departmental focus.

2. This manuscript was written in late-2014 and accepted for publication in late-2015.

3. I have found useful Barkley (2010), Chickering and Gamson (1987), Conrad and Dunek (2012), Fink (2003), Finkel (2000), Lee (2004), Michaelsen, Knight, and Dee Fink (2002), Rotenberg (2005) and Weimer (2013).

4. While the required survey asks a series of questions about the conduct of the professor, the CTL one asks only one, and that has to do with the frequency of meetings outside of the classroom. The results of the required surveys were very positive, but yield little insight into the learning experience.

5. In terms of numbers, in Fall 2012, 502 students in 32 courses took the survey, while the numbers for the following Fall are 351 students and 20 courses; so-called regular courses numbered 374 and 372 for the two semesters in question.

6. Lapp and Caldwell (2012) report students gaining a deeper appreciation for community through ethnographic research. Fink (2014, 509–510) found that an inquiry-based course helped to forge a double sense of community, both among students engaged in a common task and with the people they were getting to know through interviews.