‘Critical cartography ’ course will explore ‘oppression ’ and ‘interrogate power dynamics’
The “oppression ” and “injustice ” of maps is the subject of a Purdue University course offered this semester.
“Critical GIS,” taught by Professor Melissa Chomintra, “will provide students with a critical review of the position power, society, justice and injustice, and tyranny have played in the training and history of cartography. ”
“ In this hands-on course students will learn the basic [geographic information system ] skills and techniques that will help them understand place and space through critical theories of race, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, class, ability, colonialism, and the State, ” according to the course description.
Students at the public school in West Lafayette will know how “maps you introduce and avoid tyranny and injustice. ”
There is no research papers in this course – otherwise, students will “engage with a modern research platform that enhances research impact and scholarship reach while applying for tools to investigate the power dynamics contained within them. ”
Professor Chomintra ( pictured ) did not respond to two emails and a voicemail left in the past two weeks by The College Fix.
The Fix asked for a copy of the syllabus, more information about resisting “oppression and inequality, ” and what “power dynamics ” means in the description.
Chomintra’s research interests include “feminist geography, ” “feminist information literacy ” and “critical race theory, ” according to her faculty bio.
The internet team and general representative Erin Murphy did not respond to requests for comment. The Fix emailed thrice and left a voice for Murphy, asking for a version of the curriculum and how the program rewards Indiana citizens. The Fix even emailed the public media relations message once in the previous two weeks.
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A previous Villanova University doctor criticized the lessons in contacted remarks to The Fix.
“ Taxpayers might rightly question whether they should be paying for a course that is so obviously aimed at enlisting students in political activism, ” Steve McGuire with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni told The Fix.
He said the program ’s emphasis on advocacy is “exactly the kind of democratization that institutions should been avoiding. ”
McGuire, a school flexibility fellow for ACTA, furthermore said the program may offend the American Association of University Professors ’ rules on intellectual freedom.
“The AAUP’s members explicitly admonish the professoriate not to indulge in indoctrination ‘with the teacher’s own views before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other views upon the matters in question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and sweetness of wisdom to be entitled to form any definitive mind, ’” McGuire said.
McGuire said the course shows why campus leadership “need to remain vigilant, ” since former President Mitch Daniels has led on free speech issues and added a civics requirement.
“This course highlights the need for university leaders and board members to continue monitoring and guiding their institutions and insisting that academic processes adhere to high professional standards of quality that avoid faddishness, politicization, and indoctrination, ” McGuire said.
Finally, the former professor said information science courses “should focus on giving students a rigorous education in the fundamentals of the discipline rather than allowing faculty to offer politicized courses designed to advance their own ideologies or political opinions. ”
He said campus leaders “should have stepped in to insist on significant revisions or that the faculty member teach a different course. ”
“The institution has no obligation under academic freedom to sponsor every course or topic that a faculty member wishes to offer. ”
MORE: Yale course asks if science can ‘be made queer ’
IMAGES: Purdue University; Ylanite/Pixabay
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