Intergroup Relations
Department Overview
Intergroup Relations (IGR) is designed for students with a curricular interest in race, social justice, and dialogic pedagogies. IGR links the study of systems of oppression to lived experience. Intergroup Relations courses ground students with a foundational understanding of racial identity within the U.S., linking to other aspects of identity as lived within intersecting systems of domination, such as gender, sexuality, class, religion, and nationality. The program bridges theory and content with group process and experiential exercises, using the practice of dialogue as a means of communicating across difference, surfacing and working with conflict, and affecting positive social change. Students apply IGR theory and content by participating in and facilitating dialogues with other students. The minor culminates with the opportunity for students to work with peers as co-facilitators of campus dialogues. Minors acquire skills applicable across academic disciplines and professional fields. Indeed, the ability to effectively engage in difficult conversations transcends the classroom to impact interactions in the home, workplace and community at-large.
Director of the Intergroup Relations Program: Jennifer Mueller
Associate Director of the Intergroup Relations Program: Lisa Grady-Willis
Affiliated Faculty
Art History: Katie Hauser
French: Adrienne Zuerner
Opportunity Program: Kelli Johnson, Eun-sil Lee
Philosophy: Susan Blake
Political Science and Gender Studies: Kate Graney
Social Work: Peter McCarthy
Sociology: Xiaoshuo Hou, Jennifer Mueller
Spanish: Viviana Rangil
Associate Dean of Student Affairs: Jamin Totino
Theater: Eunice Ferreira
Intergroup Relations Minor
The IGR minor requires a minimum of 18 credits, including the following requirements:
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Intergroup/Intragroup Race Dialogue Course | ||
| Select one of the following: | 2 | |
| Intergroup/Intragroup Race Dialogues: People of Color/White People (People of Color/White People) | ||
| Intergroup/Intragroup Race Dialogues: Multiracial Identity (Multiracial Identity) | ||
| Intergroup/Intragroup Race Dialogues: White Racial Identity (White Racial Identity) | ||
| Intergroup/Intragroup Race Dialogues: People of Color Intragroup (People of Color Intragroup) | ||
| Foundational Course in Race, Racism, and Dialogue | ||
| SO 219 | Race and Power | 4 |
| Facilitator Training Application Course | ||
| IG 361 | Racial Identities: Theory and Praxis | 4 |
| or SO 361 | Racial Identities: Theory and Praxis | |
| Capstone Experience | ||
| IG 364 | Practicum in Facilitating 1 | 3 |
| IG 365 | Dialogue Facilitation 2 | 2 |
| Elective Courses | ||
| Select at least one of the following: | 3-4 | |
Choice of courses that provide a theoretical foundation focused on a particular racial identity group, a race-focused topical area, and/or with identity foci that demonstrate intersectionality with race, including but not limited to: | ||
| Diversity in The United States | ||
| Critical Whiteness in the US | ||
| Disorderly Women | ||
| Introduction to African-American Literature | ||
| Special Studies in African-American Literature | ||
| Special Topics in Intergroup Relations (A Black Woman Speaks: Will you fight with me? ) | ||
| A Black Woman Speaks: Will you fight with me? | ||
| Special Studies in Music Literature (when topic is Taiko and the Asian American Experience) | ||
| Social Inequality | ||
| Power, Privilege and Oppression: Advancing Social Justice | ||
| Black Theater | ||
| Total Hours | 18-19 | |
Course Listing
In intergroup/intragroup race dialogue, students learn about racial identity, conflict, community, and social justice in the United States. Trained peer-facilitators encourage dialogue about controversial social issues, such as affirmative action, immigration reform, and interracial relationships in a small classroom setting within the context of the relevant racial identity group(s). Working together with their peer-facilitators, student participants explore similarities and differences among and across groups and strive toward building a multicultural and democratic community.
An examination of special topics, methods, and areas in intergroup relations. Specific topics vary by instructor and semester.
An examination of the concept of home as it relates to the historical and contemporary realities of Black people in the United States. Using the work of renowned scholars and writers such as bell hooks and Toni Morrison, students explore notions of home as a catalyst for, IGR, dialogue both within and between families and communities. Students interrogate their own experiences of home as they grow as a community of writers and critical thinkers.
What is the fight and how do we engage? This course guides students in an examination of the historical and societal context as well as contemporary applicability of pieces that dare folks to engage on a visceral level (music, theater, poetry, prose). Students will explore creative works and oratorical moments that issue a call-to-action, while giving voice and visibility to Black women. Students will articulate their own calls-to-action relative to current realities, as well as participate in the conceptualization of a course-inspired campus event bridging Black History Month and Women’s History Month.
An examination at the advanced level of special topics, methods, and areas in intergroup relations theory and praxis. Specific topics vary by instructor and semester.
An integration of sociological theory and praxis in a seminar that prepares students to facilitate dialogues on race. What factors hinder meaningful discourse about race? What skills promote interracial communication? How can we learn to engage more effectively in dialogue about race, power, and privilege in the United States? Through readings in racial identity theory, reflective and analytic writing, and experiential practice of dialogic communication skills, students learn to facilitate dialogues on controversial race-related topics, such as affirmative action, immigration reform, and interracial relationships.
A course that helps students develop and improve their skills as dialogue facilitators. This will be done in the context of the belief that facilitation skills can be used throughout life to create social change. Good facilitators are social change agents. Moreover, by debriefing their actual dialogue experiences, facilitators can deepen their learning about racial identity, discrimination, privilege, and social justice.
An intergroup or intragroup dialogue course in which students facilitate dialogues about racial identity, conflict, community, and social justice.
A program of individual reading and research under the direction of the intergroup relations faculty.
A critical analysis of race, racism, and racial justice in the United States, as set in a global, historical context defined by power. In addition to traditional modes of teaching-learning, students use intergroup dialogue and collaborative group work to explore and communicate how race is constructed, experienced, reproduced, and transformed within hierarchical systems of domination and subordination. Topics include racial identity development and the ways individuals internalize and ‘live race’ in relation to other identities (e.g., gender, sexuality, disability and class); historical mechanisms of racialization, through which bodies, groups, practices, and space are ‘raced’; institutional dimensions of race, racialization, and racial inequality (e.g., in law, education, popular culture); and practices for resisting racism and pursuing racial justice—in groups and organizations, across society more broadly, and within one’s embodied experience.
An integration of sociological theory and praxis in a seminar that prepares students to facilitate dialogues on race. What factors hinder meaningful discourse about race? What skills promote interracial communication? How can we learn to engage more effectively in dialogue about race, power, and privilege in the United States? Through readings in racial identity theory, reflective and analytic writing, and experiential practice of dialogic communication skills, students learn to facilitate dialogues on controversial race-related topics, such as affirmative action, immigration reform, and interracial relationships.