New Ways of Learning

By Rebecca Cruise

Can you answer these questions?

In 1948, over 1,000 OU students rallied to oppose the rejected law school application of the person who would become the first Black woman law student at the university. Which place on campus pays tribute to her?

What building is rumored to have been designed to repel anti-Vietnam protests in the 1960s? (Although protests did take place, this was not the purpose of the building’s stark design.)

In the fall of 2015, Indigenize OU, founded by four Native American students, put forward a proposal to the SGA to stop recognizing Columbus Day. Today on the second Monday in October, we commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day at OU with many events, including a processional down what path?

If you know OU activism history well, you would answer: the Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Fountain, the Blender (Physical Sciences Center) and the South Oval. If you were in my international activism class in the fall semester, you would have run with a team of fellow students to these and other points of activism across campus, reflecting and taking selfies as you went. It was an unusual day for our class: our first-ever OU activism scavenger hunt.

The pandemic has pushed us all to think differently and to adjust to changing circumstances. As I returned to the classroom in August, I wanted to find fun, creative ways for our group of 30 to engage with each other safely. The activism scavenger hunt allowed students to learn about the history of activism on their campus in the very spots where people have gathered to advance their causes. It also was a way to get outdoors and move around with their classmates in a safe way during the pandemic.

In our continuous desire to reach students, faculty tried all sorts of projects, ideas and new ways of learning this past year. Some may not have been as effective as we would have liked, and others were great successes that we will surely keep in our tool kits as we head out of the pandemic. This scavenger hunt, for one, will definitely stay on my syllabus.

Rebecca Cruise is the CIS associate dean for student services and assistant professor of security studies and comparative politics.