Teaching in Honors:

Innovative Ways of Being in the World

Dr. Alexandra Schultheis, Department of English
Dr. Stephen J. Sills, Department of Sociology

Undergraduate Honors Symposium

LLOYD
INTERNATIONAL
HONORS COLLEGE
Human Rights Awareness
through Film
Human rights films make
historical moments, abuses of
power, and global inequalities
available for scrutiny, debate,
and recontextualization.

Human rights films help us to

imagine the suffering and pain
of others and to recognize the
effects of seemingly normative
political and economic policies.

Dialogue on human rights films

may help us to understand how
they are embedded in the same
global flows of capital and
culture that the films themselves
aim to critique.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Article 1.
– All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a
spirit of brotherhood.
– {Individuals are rational actors with personal agency}

• Article 2.
– Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration,
without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person
belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other
limitation of sovereignty.
– {Rights supersede the sovereignty of states to apply to all individuals}

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
• Civil & Political Rights:
– Prohibits discrimination, prohibits torture/cruel/inhumane
treatment, prohibits slavery, limits death penalty, permits
freedom of movement/residence, protects rights of due process,
and protects freedom of expression/association/assembly, etc.
• Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights:
– Right to work, right to fair pay, right to safe working conditions,
rights to unionize, rights to social security, rights to adequate
food/housing/living conditions, rights to education, rights to
health care, etc.

There are over 80 UN Human Rights Instruments

Between the classroom and
the world
Dharamsala, India sits on the
edge of the Indian Himalayas.
 When the Chinese army
invaded Tibet, the Dalai Lama
fled to India in 1959. The
Indian Government eventually
gave the Tibetans this former
British hill station.
Perched on top of a ridge, it is the home
of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and
the Dalai Lama.
Despite its remoteness, it hosts a steady stream of Tibetan
refugees and Buddhist pilgrims as well as what has been
called the most successful exile government in the world.
People holding incense and wearing prayer scarves line the streets to welcome
home the Dalai Lama from one of his many teachings.
Ama Adhe, a former independence leader who was
imprisoned by the Chinese for 27 years and then escaped to
India, now lives and works at the Tibetan Refugee Center.
She is the author of The Voice that Remembers.
Two recent refugee arrivals (Sonam Choedon & Lobsang Gyatso) are currently
living and taking computer classes at Gu-Chu-Sum, an organization for former
political prisoners.
Two of the famous Drapchi 14.
Seeing the Global
in the Local
The Triad's Global Identity:
Visual Ethnography of the
North Carolina’s Immigrant
Communities (HSS208)
Image © 2006 Jen G. Bowen
Used with Permission
 Immigrant and Refugee Populations in the Triad

Social Scientists with Cameras: Ethical Issues

Rhetor
(author, speaker, artist)

Visual Rhetoric
Text Audience
(oral, written, visual) (reader, listener, viewer)

International Migration Theory

Visual Content Analysis

http://uncgvisualsoc.blogspot.com/

http://www.uncg.edu/~sjsills/Honors/
Assignment 1 : Visualizing Migrant
Communities
Assignment : Media Analysis
 Assignment : Photo documentary of
Immigrant Community
• Finally, the students will conduct
their own ethnographic study of the
Triad’s immigrant and refugee
communities by engaging in
photographic observations at
immigrant churches, social service
agencies, and community
organization.
• Select photographs from these
ethnographic projects will be
mounted and framed and then
showcased in an end-of-semester
gallery exhibition (May 7, venue
TBA).
Immigrant Reception in the Triad
• Feb 20 - 2:00 to 3:30 in Ferguson
100
• Panel from local
refugee/immigrant agencies
(Lutheran Family Services, World
Relief, Center for New North
Carolinians, FaithAction
International House)
• Sociology Club organizing
volunteer activities at these and
other immigrant-serving agencies
throughout February
 Innovative Ways of Being in the
World
• Both of these courses have brought our
work in the world into the classroom.
• Moreover the interdisciplinarity of honors
and study abroad allow students to see
their work as a part of, rather than
separate from, the global.
The mission of the International Honors
College (IHC) is to recruit outstanding
undergraduate students to UNCG and to
provide them with an enhanced and
supportive intellectual and social
experience that acculturates them to the
life of the mind and helps them to
become critical, independent thinkers
who are active in the design and pursuit
of their own education, globally aware
and engaged, and prepared to lead
successful and fulfilling professional,
civic, and personal lives.