Megan Wang ’20, Professor Kirsten Wesselhoeft

This summer, I had the opportunity of working with Professor Wesselhoeft on her project called Muslims of the Present. While mainstream scholarship on Islam in France often is framed in terms of secularism, French identity, and logics of integration, Professor Wesselhoeft’s research innovatively focuses on the robust cultures of social critique and discord within the French Muslim community.

My research consisted of exploring the wide range of French social discourse on Islam. I analyzed a range of primary source materials like speeches from prominent leaders within the Muslim community in France, organizational mission statements, news articles about controversies surrounding women’s covering, as well as scholarly work from both American and French academics. I also transcribed French from audio recordings and important conferences that touched upon relevant issues.

In addition to researching Muslim communities in France, I helped Professor Wesselhoeft with educational materials for two of her courses next fall. For an Introductory Religion course, I developed a syllabus unit on Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism. Together, we interrogated pedagogical questions like why ideologies of bias should be studied in the first place. Similarly, for an Introductory Women’s Studies course, I created a website to showcase my French to English translations of Maya-Ines Touam’s photography series surrounding Muslim women’s dress. It is my hope that from these translations, students grasp the nuance the debate surrounding muslim women’s dress beyond the concepts of choice and scrutiny.

Throughout this project, I was exposed to a wealth of new information about Islam in France as well as the nuance religion carries in relation to public and private life, assimilationist rhetoric, gender dynamics, and politics overall. I am grateful to have been able to work closely with Professor Wesselhoeft, hone my research and critical thinking abilities, as well as utilize my French language skills.

The purpose of this project was to develop a research background for a Poughkeepsie non-profit that is working on providing High-Quality Early Childhood Education (HQECE) to the children and families of the community.

In recent decades, policymakers have turned to early care and education to counter poverty’s negative impact on children ages 0-5. Nevertheless, families and early care centers struggle to find enough resources to access and provide HQECE. The Day One Early Learning Community was recently launched to tackle these challenges in the City of Poughkeepsie.

With this ambitious goal in mind, Professor Riess and I launched into an evaluation of the current state of early childhood education (ECE) in the United States, focusing on three main areas: practice, policy, and long-term results. Our starting point was the notion that there are three perspectives, each with specific concerns, involved in ECE: teachers, who rely on proper compensation and work environments; parents, who rely on options that are both, high-quality and affordable; and children, who rely on stimulating interactions.

Given ECE’s current set-up as a heavily privatized market with little public investment, it is challenging to meet the demands of these three perspectives, leading scholars to argue in favor of increasing public funding for HQECE. However, considering that accomplishing this shift will take a considerable amount of time, we continued to focus on the impact of current policies and practices on performance. With this, our research dealt with the topics of teacher compensation, public investment and scaled-up programs, model programs, and economic returns.

Our final products are a set of three databases focused on literature, visuals, and facts, and a series of executive summaries. Both attempt to synthesize the available knowledge on HQECE and hence serve as a resource for Day One’s community outreach.

Leah Cates, Women’s Studies Major, Creative Writing Minor, Class of 2020
Tom Ellman, Associate Professor of Computer Science

As a Caucasian student at a prestigious college entrusted to work with six children of color from an under-resourced part of Poughkeepsie, I approached this project wary of my potential to inadvertently cause harm. Although I genuinely enjoyed working with the bright children and dedicated staff, my research and reflection on community-engaged learning (CEL) deepened my understanding of its dangers.

The project included three components:

–Barrett Kids Program (BKP) Volunteering: BKP is an art and homework club for 6-10-year-olds, held at the Barrett Art Center (BAC). At BKP, I built close relationships with the children, particularly six-year-old Emma, with whom I read, completed homework and played. I kept a journal of my time with Emma, and wrote analyses of Emma and her sister, Mia’s, behavior and development for their mother.*  

Reading a book with Emma at Adriance Library

–Video-Game: We used Scratch to create two original video games for the kids, whose artwork and collaboration were instrumental in game development. The project encouraged the kids to consider their lives and art in a unique light. On day 1, the kids first played The Barrett Kids Art Supply Quest, which features the kids’ houses, self-portraits and photos of BK staff. Next, they generated ideas and artwork for game 2. I wrote dialogue for and coded game 2, titled Anna & Frida Shop (Anna is the BKP director; Frida is her daughter), which the kids played the following week. The game showcases a narrative developed by the kids, with six levels, each featuring a different child’s work. 

Generating ideas for “Anna & Frida Shop” at BAC

Playing “The Barrett Kids Art Supply Quest” with Mia

–Research & Writing: Throughout the summer, I explored the inherently problematic nature of CEL. My research and reflection culminated in a 15-page essay combining literature with lived experience, as well as a 15-page annotated bibliography. The former discusses CEL’s flaws, including its inability to address structural oppression and tendency to promote the “savior-industrial complex.” Despite my attempts to contribute value to the community, my experience was fraught with CEL pitfalls, including exploitation (e.g., photographs for this write-up), and emotional harm, as Emma became upset when we separated at the program’s end. 

In the essay, I ask whether resources spent on non-profits can be put to greater use. Do programs like BK provide cover for government inaction? Do privileged learners/workers alienate populations “served”? Perhaps. Nevertheless, students cannot hide behind intellectual arguments. Of course we didn’t achieve structural change. But the Barrett kids’ creativity and confidence blossomed. 

*Emma and Mia are aliases to protect the children’s identities.

This summer, I worked with Professor Ben Ho in the economics department to revise his book, Trustonomics, which explains how trust has developed and contributed to economic growth over time. The book is an important contribution to the field because it calls on economists to consider the importance of centering relationships between individuals in economic analysis as opposed to focusing on the traditional rational actor.

We constructed a narrative grounded in the concept of Dunbar’s number, a metric discovered by anthropologist Robin Dunbar that measures the average size of a human network, which he estimates to be about 150 people. We then explain how a person’s “trust number,” or the size of their personal network, has grown over time as a result of the development of bodies like religion, governments, and financial institutions which help us determine who we can and can not trust and allow increasingly large numbers of people to work together. Toward the end of the book, we grapple with recent data that indicates an erosion of institutional trust over the past several decades. With the advent of the internet, we  gained access to a significant volume of information. Social media has encouraged the proliferation of fake news and false information and has changed the way we interact with each other, affecting who we form relationships with and who we decide to trust. Ultimately, we believe that current declining levels of trust are symptomatic of an adjustment to new technologies and methods of communication and that institutional structures that developed and evolved over thousands of years will support and help maintain important relationships as we adjust to new ways of communicating and interacting with each other.

This summer, I worked with Professor Dozier on recreating a new introductory Latin curriculum. Traditionally students learn Latin by rote memorization of noun charts and verb forms. The high focus on memorization makes Latin inaccessible to many different students, which is why this class is designed to focus on translation rather than memorization; this shift allows students to jumpstart on the actual purpose of learning Latin, which is translating Latin texts. 

We used Ritchie’s Fabulae Faciles with a commentary by Geoffrey Steadman as the main text for this class. This Latin textbook contains increasingly difficult stories about different mythological heroes. Since the book was designed for intermediate Latin students, we systematically reworked the first twelves stories about Perseus for introductory Latin students to begin translating on their first day of class. After the initial reworked version, we produced a version of medium difficulty, which would require more grammatical knowledge of students. Finally, the last version of the text would be the original version of the Fabulae. This focus on translation allows students to gain the skills necessary to translate Latin text rather than harnessing the skills to reproduce grammatical structures. 

Perseus saves Andromeda from a sea serpent.

We decided to enhance the class further by researching the Latin language itself. We read books concerning the history of the language such as Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas Ostler. Vox Latina gave us insight into how modern people know the pronunciation of the language. We also explored James Lang’s Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning in order to integrate innovative pedagogical methods into the class.

By stepping away from the traditional methods of teaching an introductory Latin class, the goal of this new curriculum is to not only enhance students’ knowledge of Latin in a more accessible and translation-based manner, but for them to also have a broader knowledge of the history of the language itself. 

Grace Whited ‘21 and Carolyn Palmer (Psychological Science)

Labyrinth at Stony Point Center, NY

This summer I worked with Professor Carolyn Palmer to develop a curriculum of labyrinth activities intended for people across the life span. The labyrinth is an ancient symbol that is famous for its appearance in the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France. Distinct from a maze due to its unicursal path, meaning there is only one path leading in and out of the center, the labyrinth is often used as a tool in contemplative practices. Mindfulness is becoming an increasingly common practice in education since it encourages self-reflection and personal growth, and the labyrinth serves as a walking meditation open to all identities. Therefore, the goal of our project was to incorporate the labyrinth into a curriculum in a fun and creative way.

Working with a young child at Wimpfheimer

Our time was spent researching the history of the labyrinth and contemplative practices, visiting various labyrinths, interviewing community members about their labyrinth experiences, designing a set of activities for people of all ages, and implementing these activities within the community. At Wimpfheimer Nursery School, I led three separate sessions with children ranging from 2-6 years. These lessons taught children how to be mindful of themselves and their surroundings. The children were fully engaged in the activities and found them very enjoyable, suggesting there are several possibilities for incorporating labyrinths into early education. I also designed an activity that combined the Hero’s Journey with the labyrinth and led it with a group of Vassar students. This exercise encouraged individual agency and creativity while allowing students to reflect on their journeys through life.

Directing children along a path they made out of tape

My experience this summer taught me that the labyrinth encourages both personal and community growth. Through its ability to facilitate self-awareness and personal reflection, the labyrinth helps people find their center and connects them to others. The labyrinth is also adaptable to the needs of any community, serving as an important tool for diverse groups. In preparation for a permanent labyrinth on Vassar’s campus, we developed a set of activities that can be used by students, faculty, and Poughkeepsie community members. These activities foster introspection and interpersonal connection, providing an opportunity for our community to grow together.