Spring 2026 First Year Seminar
Advancing Human Rights and Social Justice - FSEM 100-18 (CRN 8414 )
This community-based course introduces human rights, social justice, and environmental justice theoretical frameworks and issues from global perspectives designed and taught by award-winning Professor of Social Justice Education, Rajni Shankar-Brown. Through interdisciplinary service learning, students will have hands-on opportunities to explore art as activism and participate in civic engagement. Specific topics, including the intersectionality of identities including race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, nationality, language, and education will be examined and provide roots to further personal and intellectual development and global citizenship. Diverse texts (readings, films, music, etc.) will include equity-centered explorations of history and the complex interplay of theories in a pluralistic society, with opportunities to apply them to current equity and inclusion issues. The course encourages reflective practice, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity through community engagement art projects focusing on historically situated and currently unfolding social justice issues. Writing as an inquiry-oriented and developmental process will be emphasized, along with multimodal literacies and communication with attention to applied critical thinking. Civic and community engagement and service-learning experiences in collaboration with diverse community partners, including public schools and nonprofit organizations, are required for the successful completion of this course.
Your Professor
Rajni Shankar-Brown, MA, MBA, PhD, is an internationally award-winning Professor and the Jessie Ball duPont Endowed Chair of Social Justice Education at Stetson University, as well as the recipient of Stetson’s most prestigious awards -- the McEniry Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Hand Award for Distinguished Faculty Achievement. She is also the President of the National Coalition for the Homeless Board, author, community organizer, cultural strategist, poet, artist, and a human rights and environmental justice activist. She is the Founder and the Executive Director of the Institute for Catalyzing Equity, Justice, and Social Change and she serves as the Co-Chair of Equity and Justice for the International Society for Teacher Education and Information Technology. Shankar-Brown actively works at international, national, state and local levels to confront systemic oppression and advance justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, including with the United Nations and U.S. Federal Agencies. She has presented around the globe and published articles, book chapters, and creative works in leading academic sources, as well as a globally celebrated collection of poetry (Tuluminous), and an education book series including Bending the Arc Toward Justice: Equity-Focused Practices for Educational Leaders and Re-Envisioning Education: Affirming Diversity and Advancing Justice. In addition to being a passionate leader and scholar, she is a dedicated Amma (which means “Mom” in her first language, Tamil) who loves sunflowers and masala chai.
Feminism and the Law - FSEM 100-XXX (CRN XXX )
The course “Feminism and the Law” will trace historical philosophical, scientific, and religious conceptions of women’s nature in relation to the development of laws restricting or enhancing women’s rights in the United States. The course will bring in scholarship by historians, lawyers, philosophers, and sociologists to help the students gain a deep and critical understanding of the still ongoing fight for women’s rights and equality.
Your Professor
Susan Peppers-Bates, PhD, attended Davidson College as an undergraduate and received her PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. She has published on figures in early modern philosophy, topics in the philosophy of religion, friendship in Harry Potter, and on existentialist vampires. She has two fabulous daughters, Anne-Marie (8) and Sophia (3). She is fond of science fiction, medieval murder mysteries, gardening, and all things philosophical.
The Spirit of Travel - FSEM 100-25 (CRN 8615)
In this course, we'll look at the relationship between travel and spirit, in other words, the relationship between outer journeys and the inner ones. Pilgrimages have long been a part of religious and cultural traditions. Consider, for example, the centuries of trips to the Holy Land, Mecca, Bodh Gaya, Lourdes and Santiago de Compostela. Think about secular pilgrimages to places like the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Vietnam War Memorial or Graceland. Besides pilgrimages to one specific place, many travelers have more free-ranging objectives: for example, the Australian walkabout or even the post-college rite of backpacking around Europe. Why is travel such a catalyst for spiritual growth? In this course, we'll focus on the ways in which travel--especially unpredictable travel outside one's comfort zone--has an effect on the spirit. We'll read books and essays—fiction and non-fiction—and watch movies and videos, alas jumping-off points for thoughtful insights, discussions, and writings about the spiritual transformations of travel.
Your Professor
Nancy Barber has been a lecturer at Stetson University since 1998. She majored in political science at Davidson College, then worked as a journalist before getting an MA in English at Stetson, and an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Florida. Barber specializes in creative nonfiction. Among her other writings, she published an essay on human cannonballs in Raritan Quarterly in 2006, she co-wrote Meals Worth Stopping for in Florida: Local Restaurants within 10 Miles of the Interstate in 2008, and she published VOL STATE 500K: A Journey Through Madness, Blurring the Lines of American Division in 2024. She is a veteran of both sacred and secular pilgrimages.