On My Soapbox from Michael Wallis | November 2024
Michael Wallis is the Student Learning Consultant for The Washington Center. His collaborative services are available to faculty who wish to improve the equity and student learning focus of their curricula.
In November of 2020, I was a sophomore undergrad experiencing quarantine in the Q building of Evergreen’s on-campus apartments. My roommates were women and queer folx who had a lot at stake that year. I remember the palpable fear we all felt, watching the electoral college votes come in from around the nation. I remember wondering ‘why is it so close?’ Being in lockdown, we had no tools, nothing to do other than homework and worrying. And all of it felt so… meaningless.
This time around, we aren’t locked in. Evergreen students are rediscovering rapidly just how much political power they have as an organized entity. The tempered success of last year’s Encampment in Red Square is proof of this, and there is more than enough passion to go around here on campus– after all, enrolling in a college like Evergreen is basically a fifty-thousand dollar commitment to building a better world.
But at the heart of Evergreen’s student life is the credit, the course. Evergreen students are at their best when their professors, their mentors, consider the responsibility they have to their students to foster an environment where they are supported in taking intellectual risks. How are you critically engaging your students’ political voices this November? Are they learning how to speak up, or sit down?
In short, we are approaching another close election. Regardless of who wins, there is sure to be a period of instability and change. Your students may feel disheartened by this. Hopeless, lacking meaning. Their anxiety may cause them to freeze up, to fall behind. You can either ignore this anxiety, and wait with false hope for the problem to pass, or you can take an active role in helping your students make meaning out of this experience.
Easier said than done, but it is possible. Work from what you know, ask questions, listen, and learn about the issues that are most important to your students. Encourage community building and resist equating ideas to people. Ensure that whenever possible, conversations are action-oriented and do not stray into either toxic negativity (we’re all doomed!) or toxic positivity (everything is fine!).
Most of all, critical hope is built on a foundation of knowing. In whatever you teach, you can give students tools to create a better world. But remember, once you give them the tool, you’ll still need to show them how– and when– to use it.
-Michael Wallis
Student Consultant
