Survey: Faculty Perceptions of Themed Courses
I received this email today and have sent it out to my Tolkien email list. As someone who has done a couple of surveys, I’m always happy to support other academics who do so. Moreover, as someone who has seen the change from absolute refusal to teach “that trash” (specifically science fiction, fantasy, other popular genres) to more awareness of the importance of popular culture, more scholarship, and more classes focusing on popular culture topics, I’m aware that there’s need for more work on the topic.1
If you who teach themed courses using popular culture (including but not limited to Tolkien!) are willing to take a few minutes to complete their survey, that would be great. Please feel free to share it with your colleagues and friends and on your social media as well
My name is Cole Belinsky and I am a research assistant working with Dr. Jill Swirsky at Holy Family University. Dr. Swirsky is part of a team called the Thematic Instruction Consortium, a group of interdisciplinary faculty who are interested in integrating popular culture themes into the classroom. We are currently collecting data from faculty who have taught/are teaching themed courses, and thought that might apply to the members of your area. We were hoping you might be willing to pass our survey to your members, and/or share with any colleagues you know who teach themed courses. The survey link is below.
https://buffalostate.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cSKSTE1DASQoYN8
Thank you in advance. Questions or concerns can be directed to Dr. Swirsky (jswirsky@holyfamily.edu) or to the broader team (thematicinstructionconsortium@gmail.com). We'd also greatly appreciate recommendations for ways to connect with other faculty teaching themed courses.
The level of awareness and acceptance varies widely of course, but I imagine that’s something this project might show. I know that during the 1990s and into the early 2000s a number of administrators at my university sneered at the research I did (said administrators paid little to no attention to what was actually taught, despite all their rhetoric, but my sense was they mostly thought “English” teachers and courses were unnecessary except for the composition classes required by the state, sigh). Some of that attitude changed with the popularity of Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, but that’s a whole other story!