Teaching Empathy Through Real-World Challenges

This week’s Faculty in Focus is Allison Walker from High Point University

Periclean Civic Engagement Fellow Allison Walker from High Point University (HPU) in North Carolina taught “Empathetic Communications in a Digital World,” an interdisciplinary Communications and Business Leadership course that emphasized the development of students’ empathetic and ethical reasoning, alongside media literacy skills. The course integrated Project Pericles’ Deliberative Dialogue module to facilitate a discussion on minimum wage determination. This dialogue was enriched by course readings and experiential learning activities called “Empathy Adventures,” which immersed students in experiences that reflected the challenges faced by minimum-wage workers. 

The “Empathy Adventures” assignments provided students with opportunities to engage directly with the realities many Americans face everyday. These tasks included preparing and sharing a healthy meal for four people for less than $10, standing for eight consecutive hours to simulate the physical strain of certain jobs, and using public transportation to commute to and from work or school for a week. One of the “Empathy Adventures” required students to follow the schedule of a single parent of two children, setting alarms to reflect the schedule one would have to follow to care for two children during the workweek.  Each “Empathy Adventure” was paired with relevant readings including first person narratives, scientific studies, and scholarly articles to contextualize the experiences within broader social and economic frameworks. These assignments also encouraged students to critically analyze how media representations shape public perceptions of minimum-wage, socioeconomic class, and social justice issues. They can be found here through our Civic Engagement Resource Database on our website.

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For their final, students worked in teams to produce materials for a digital “empathy museum,” a mixed-media showcase of the service experiences they completed during the semester. Student’s completed 25 hours of service learning at non-profit organizations aligned with one of three themes: food insecurity, education outreach, and social justice. The final projects required students to apply their media literacy skills by synthesizing their experiences into digital content that effectively and empathetically communicated complex social issues to a broader audience. 

In reflecting on the impact of the Civic Engagement Fellowship, Walker notes, “This project has been transformative for faculty and students alike, and the benefits of this work will continue to enhance the climate of HPU by encouraging civil discourse across political and ideological divides and reinforcing participants' motivation to vote.”

Through this course, students not only gained proficiency in empathetic communication and ethical reasoning but also developed critical understanding of media literacy. Through experiential learning and creating impactful media, they learned how to evaluate the way narratives are constructed and how they might differ from real lived experiences. 
Inspired by Allison Walker to spark civic engagement on your campus? Explore our Civic Engagement Mini-Grants, now featuring a new track, Beyond Media Literacy: Enhancing Information Ecosystems to Bridge Divides!

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