Professor: Young-Scaggs Course format: Seminar Number of respondents: 7 Total Enrollment: 10 Class Composition: Froshs: 0 Sophs: 2 Jrs: 1 Srs: 7 Concs: 1 Non-Concs: 6 Don't Know: 0

Instructor Average: 1.79 Course Average: 1.69

This seminar, "Black Leadership in Ethnic Communities," interrogates and critically examines black leadership through the exploration of class, gender, and politics in ethnic communities. While there are no official prerequisites, some survey respondents felt that prior study of African American literature and cultural traditions was helpful.

All reviewers agreed that Reverend Young-Scaggs was a very engaging and open-minded instructor. Her teaching techniques were widely praised. She demonstrated continuous one-to-one attention and genuine interest in getting to know individual students. She effectively divided class time between lecture and discussion, and incorporated the interests of each class member. Students also really appreciated the guest speakers as a supplement to the readings; they allowed for direct engagement with the idea of black leadership. The establishment of weekly dialogue partners greatly enhanced the communication of ideas, as well.

Class members enjoyed the handout readings, finding pertinent to the discussions. With a few exceptions, the book readings were not considered quite as useful. Students completed weekly one-page papers in response to the readings. Two longer papers, along with a final presentation, were also assigned.

Most respondents felt like the workload for this course matched their initial expectations. Students generally spent about 3-4 hours per week outside of class completing the assigned reading. Overall, they felt that they greatly benefited from the discussions as well as the "fun and bright" professor. If you are interested in black leadership and would like to be informed on many related issues, then check this class out!

View AF/0106 in the Brown Online Course Announcement.