INQ-300 | Underserved Communities

Full Title: Place-making for Underserved Communities

Topic Description:

While the United States celebrates itself as a “melting pot”, this concept washes over the forced or coerced assimilation of diverse communities to an Anglo-American ideal. Historic preservation, the process by which we document historic buildings, sites, and landscapes, has been complicit in this by focusing on sites associated with elites. Similarly, public art and museum collections have long sidelined diverse communities. In this class, students will work with local and regional collaborators on real-world projects researching, interpreting and celebrating the history of underserved communities. Through their group projects, students will contribute to a more inclusive understanding of community history. We will think about how our sense of “place” is both a physical reality and a construct of racial and identity-based ideas about community identity. We will ask: How can our region, and the larger nation, better document, celebrate, and preserve the present and historic diversity of our underserved communities?

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: February 2022