Ursuline College receives grant from Teagle Foundation to redesign core curriculum

Ursuline College has received a grant from the Teagle Foundation to help revamp its core curriculum. Ursuline College has for many years required a core sequence of courses through its English Department and its Rust Belt Humanities Lab to give all students a core context of Cleveland as a Rust Belt city as they move through their educational journeys. However, one professor notes that many students have noted that their understanding of their city makes it one they are eager to leave.

According to an article on Ursuline College’s website, Katharine G. Trostel, PhD, who is an associate professor of English as well as the unit chair of the humanities and founder of the Rust Belt Humanities Lab, explained the core curriculum as it currently stands, saying, “Our students graduate with the intellectual framework to engage locally with the community as problem-solvers and critical thinkers. We’re building off this success to restructure these courses to add new context and pride to Cleveland’s history while creating a unifying experience for our students.”

Trostel went on to point out the unintended effect this has on some students: “But when students are asked about the region—their hometown-- they define it as a place they want to leave. We want to encourage our students to stay in the area by unraveling the region’s past and envisioning productive Rust Belt futures. The new course structure will help them write effectively from within and about their region using a language that is both rooted in place and history.”

A three-year, $100,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation’s “Cornerstone: Learning for Living” initiative will help Trostel redesign the courses in Ursuline College’s core curriculum to reshape the framework students work with when exploring their region. According to the information provided about the initiative on the Teagle Foundation’s website, the initiative “is dedicated to the proposition that transformative texts—regardless of authorship, geography, or the era that produced them—perform a democratizing function in giving students the analytical tools and historical awareness to interrogate themselves as well as the culture and society by which we are all partially formed.”

Trostel explained that in addition to its history as part of the Rust Belt, Cleveland is also notable for its central roles in several movements like the The Civil Rights, American Indian, and Environmental Movements.

Valentino Zullo, PhD, assistant professor and Anisfield-Wolf Postdoctoral Fellow in English and the Public Humanities, shared his thoughts about the “healing arts” that so many Ursuline students choose to study, and what role the teachings of the Rust Belt Humanities Lab play in these professions. He said, “These professions require an understanding of the narratives—both painful and hopeful—that underpin so much of our lived experience in this Rust Belt region; the stories that we tell about place have real consequences.”

Trostel shared her goal with the redesigning of these core curriculum courses. “Our hope is to inspire students to be civic actors with particular expertise in the problems and promises of the Rust Belt,” she said.

For more information about Ursuline College, visit the school’s website.