Yi Deng

Yi Deng is assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Georgia. Kantian and Confucian perspectives imbue her work on practical issues in moral and political philosophy, as well as her work with students.

1. Which of your courses get students out of the classroom? What types of civic engagement work do your students engage in?

Ethics from a Global Perspective is a lower-division course that requires a civic engagement project. When I first taught the course, students worked on social responsibility projects to address practical issues occurring in communities. Using a problem-solving approach, the students were asked to research the issues, present ethical proposals, and develop action plans. Since spring 2016, I have adopted a civic engagement project modeled on the engaged philosophy model , which requires building e-portfolios and arranging a public event to further the power of civic engagement.

In spring 2016, students worked on civic engagement projects (31 projects from 3 sections) on campus or in the surrounding community. The projects focused on issues of cross-generational friendships, the influence of modern technology on life, campus rape, river pollution, food poverty, homelessness, trash problems and recycling, sex trafficking, kindness, animal welfare, Down syndrome awareness, and others. These projects involved students’ collaboration with local organizations, such as a senior center, the Community Helping Place, TLC Humane Society, Abba House, the Potter’s House, the Samaritan’s Feet organization, the End It movement, and Save the Horses farm.

In fall 2016, students worked in groups on civic engagement projects (12 from 2 sections) on campus or in the surrounding community, focusing on topics of autism awareness, healthy lifestyles, hunger, shoe recycling, social media, suicide, the effect of cell phones on social interaction, campus loneliness, random kindness, prejudice, and trash on trails. All groups successfully organized campus event(s) on their topics. Some projects involved collaboration with local organizations, such as the Mountain Food Bank, UNG (University of North Georgia) Food Pantry, and Community Helping Place.

 

2. Give an example of a successful project.

There are so many successful projects and various ways to define “success.” I am very proud of all my students’ accomplishments!!!

The following is an example of a well-organized team: under a $10 budget limit, a group of five students collected over 900 pounds of food items plus cash donations, which surpassed their goal of 1,000 pounds of food. All collected goods were sent to the Georgia Mountain Food Bank (GMFB). As a team, they had a one-week campaign with the aim of raising awareness about food insecurity in the North Georgia region. The campaign consisted of four-hour time slots each day, and nine students from other groups also helped. Their local community partners included GMFB and Dunkin Donuts. Two students from the group volunteered at least two hours for the GMFB. Many factors that contributed to their success included having motivated group members and group leaders, exceptional organizational skills, group collaboration, partnerships with the local community, and strong support from campus.

 

3. What do you think students gain from doing this civic engagement?

The students learned to think about the connection between ethical theories and practical issues. Students were asked to write a comparative philosophical analysis related to their projects, and they raised very interesting philosophical questions. For example: how can we achieve happiness in a technological world? How does face-to-face communication relate to our happiness and personal growth? What is the moral status of our dependence on social media? What is the value of friendships to a life worth living? In what sense are we respecting a person with autism? What is the connection between random kindness and happiness? What is loneliness? Is loneliness a moral problem? Is suicide morally permissible? Whose responsibility is it to prevent suicide? How should we define “trails”? What makes environmental waste wrong? What is prejudice? What is the justification for fighting prejudice? What are my moral obligations towards poverty? Whose responsibility is it to fight against food insecurity? Do we have an ethical duty to help meet the social needs of others? As Bertrand Russell says in The Problems of Philosophy, asking questions is valuable, since “these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation…”

Through the students’ public events, they have also been challenged by different perspectives from strangers, their group members, classmates, or even friends. As one student indicated, “we learned to step out of our comfort zones and speak out to strangers.” Courage is needed to confront differences. It requires more to embrace our commonalities across differences. It is one of the most courageous things to construct a positive framework and make moral progress together. I hope the whole journey has offered students personally rewarding experiences as well. As students remark on the time management skills they gained from the project, “Do not wait!”

 

4. Why do you choose to ask students to do civic engagement projects?

I like to use civic engagement projects to defend the value of philosophy. These projects demonstrate that philosophy is relevant and valuable to students’ lives. As the voice of the students, these student-initiated projects record stories of student empowerment. Through community engagement projects, students are expected to critically identify practical problems and learn to use philosophy as an important tool for seeking solutions to problems. Meanwhile practical concerns raised by students offer a unique lens to contemplate a variety of ethical theories. Such critical and reflective experiences, I believe, are essential to individual development, and may also encourage students to become more engaged citizens.

Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers  is one of textbooks for this course. One key question asked by Appiah is how to get along with strangers. The accomplishment of community engagement projects is a practical testimony of our capacity to work together despite our differences.

 

5. If someone wanted to do these projects at their own institution, what steps or resources would you recommend?

Two good steps include understanding your students and getting them to work together. Many of my students are first-year college students, commuter students, and students with multiple jobs or other busy schedules. The challenge is how to help them effectively finish a high-quality practical project without sacrificing the commitment to in-depth theoretical analyses and a wide scope of global ethics. Students’ feedback has proven to be tremendously helpful for designing a feasible project. Working in teams of 4-5, students concentrate on a project on campus. The recommended hours for each student to work on the project are calculated in terms of the percentage of the project on the final grade. In the first month, I invite former students to share their experiences. Volunteers from the class then propose possible projects. Students form groups based on their interests and the individual skills that they can best contribute to the team. In the second month, the whole class participates in a public event on campus that is preparation—and sometimes an advertising opportunity—for their individual campus event. Some groups have even been able to find a campus partner during the class demonstration. I also require students to help/participate in other groups’ activities (this was a suggestion from former students!), and I assign a peer assessment, providing forms for the purpose. The project ends with an in-class presentation, final updates of the e-Portfolio, and a reflective writing assignment.

 

6. What is your favorite quote and why?

Here are two quotes from the Analects:

1.1 The Master said, “To learn and then have occasion to practice what you have learned—is this not satisfying? To have friends arrive from afar—is this not a joy? To be patient even when others do not understand—is this not the mark of the gentlemen?” (trans by Edward Slingerland)

7.22 The Master said, “When walking with two other people, I will always find a teacher among them. I focus on those who are good and seek to emulate them, and focus on those who are bad in order to be reminded of what needs to be changed in myself.”  (trans by Edward Slingerland)

Why do I like these quotes? To learn from a group of passionate friends and practice what you have learned together—is this not a joy?