Exploring Food Waste and Farming Policy: Professor Berry’s Dialogues in Environmental Studies3/31/2025
 This Week’s faculty in focus is Brieanne Berry, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA.
As a two-time Civic Engagement Fellow, Professor Berry has developed and adapted resources for deliberative dialogues, helping students explore complex environmental policy issues through multiple perspectives. She even contributed a new deliberative dialogue on wasted food for Project Pericles’ Deliberative Dialogue Topics and Prompts. Project Pericles is thrilled to announce we have awarded 49 new Civic Engagement Mini-Grant to faculty and staff who are empowering students to engage with public issues in inclusive and collaborative ways, fostering deeper civic participation. Grants are supporting innovative civic projects across 21 states and at 46 institutions including Pericleans, private liberal arts colleges, public universities, minority serving institutions, and community colleges.
From using birdwatching to spark conversations around feminism and immigration, to exploring voting rights through the lens of the food business at a culinary institute, each Fellow is implementing a unique innovative project to help students gain critical skills for life-long civic leadership, while drawing upon and contributing to our Civic Engagement Resources.  This week’s Faculty in Focus is Eric Dean Wilson, an English Professor at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York.
In his Fall 2024 U.S. Environmental Literature course, Professor Wilson and his students partnered with two local institutions - Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Gardens and The Alice Austen House. The course, part of the Periclean Faculty Leadership program, explored “the rhetoric of nature,” examining how non-human nature is represented in literature. It also challenges the idea that today’s environmental concerns are unprecedented, instead reframing them as long-standing issues that have shaped American culture for centuries. Through an analysis of select literary works, students gained insight into how environmental challenges have persisted over time and how artists have engaged with these issues to shape cultural narratives.  Did you know that 64% of students say they don’t have the opportunity to have face-to-face conversations with people who hold different perspectives?(1) Project Pericles’ deliberative dialogue resources and Unify America’s digital platform are working to change that.
On Friday, March 14, Project Pericles hosted a webinar, Technology Empowered Dialogue: Within and Beyond the Classroom, in collaboration with Unify America to explore how faculty can engage in meaningful dialogue across political divides. Dr. Emily Stacey, a Periclean Civic Engagement Fellow and Political Science professor at Rose State College, shared how she integrates Unify America’s tools to complement Project Pericles’ deliberative dialogue modules into her courses: Intro to Mass Media and American Federal Government. She facilitated dialogues around hyperpartisanship and mass incarceration and also explained how her tactics for implementing dialogues both in asynchronous platforms, like using online discussion forums and real-time dialogues, can be incorporated across disciplines beyond political science. The Project Pericles deliberative dialogue modules, for example, have several discussion topics and resources across courses in business, the humanities, STEM, and social sciences.  This week’s Faculty in Focus is Joe Hall, Associate Professor of History at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Through his course, Wabanaki History in Maine, Professor Hall demonstrates the power of community-engaged education - bridging historical scholarship with civic impact. Although a 2001 state law mandates that Maine public schools teach Wabanaki history, many schools still lack the resources to fully implement it. “Wabanaki”-- meaning “People of the Dawnland”-- collectively refers to the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet (or Wolastoqiyik), Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, and Abenaki peoples, which are the Indigenous communities of present-day northern New England, southern Quebec, and Canadian Maritime provinces. Seeing this gap, Professor Hall saw an opportunity to take action. Partnering with Auburn Middle School and Maine Online Open-Source Education (MOOSE) project, he and his students worked to develop accessible, high-quality educational materials that could help local schools integrate Wabanaki history into their curricula.  This week’s faculty in focus is Dr. Emily Stacey, Professor of Political Science and Program Coordinator at Rose State College.
As a Periclean Fellow, Dr. Stacey integrated deliberative dialogues into two political science courses. The first course, Introduction to Mass Media & Politics, provided a comprehensive survey of both international and American media systems, exploring traditional and digital media and their role in shaping civic participation and political behavior. The second course, American Federal Government offered an overview of key constitutional principles, major U.S. political institutions, and contemporary political issues. Both courses featured deliberative dialogues on four key topics: reducing hyperpartisanship, censorship legislation and free speech, youth and economic opportunity, and voting rights for incarcerated individuals. Using prompts and resources from our deliberative dialogue modules, students conducted independent research to develop informed perspectives. Class discussions encouraged them to explore these issues, consider diverse viewpoints, and assess potential political actions. Through this process, students became more confident in engaging in civil discourse. Reflecting on the value of deliberative dialogue, Dr. Stacey shared, “Discourse is key to a democracy, but can be daunting and intimidating in the hyperpolarized political environment that we live in. Deliberative Dialogue modules allow students to approach issues from different perspectives, grounded in fact- based information, and convey their opinions and thoughts to their peers. This experience makes them more willing to do so in the greater community and democracy.” Dr. Stacey’s work demonstrates the power of deliberative dialogue in fostering thoughtful, respectful conversations about complex issues. By creating spaces where students can explore diverse perspectives and engage in meaningful discussions, she is helping to prepare the next generation of informed empathetic citizens ready to participate in our democracy.  This week’s Faculty in Focus is Lou Martin, Professor of History at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
For his Spring 2024 course, Oral History and Coalfield Communities, Professor Martin partnered with the Center for Coalfield Justice (CCJ) and the West Virginia Regional History Center to connect students with coal industry workers and their historices, fostering dialogue across geographic and cultural divides. The Center for Coalfield Justice, originally founded as an advocacy group focused on the environmental impact of coal mining, has since expanded its mission to include collaborating with communities in southwestern Pennsylvania affected by the decline of the mining industry. As part of the course, CCJ paired students with local residents who had worked as miners or held other roles in the coal industry. Through interviews, students captured personal narratives that were then added to CCJ’s historical archive and the West Virginia Regional History Center’s collection, preserving these diverse voices for future generations. |
|
Project Pericles
1216 Broadway, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10001
[email protected]
[email protected]