Starting in the winter semester, there will be a new geography course offered at Grand Valley State University. Titled “GYP 380: Race, Ethnicity and Place,” is a special topics in geography course. It is designed to provide an “interdisciplinary opportunity for students to pursue advanced study in special topics related to geography,” according to the GVSU catalog. While aimed toward geography students, the course is considered gen-ed and will satisfy the U.S. Diversity and Issues credits for any student.
The course will focus on mapping how ethnic and racial segregation, class segregation and inequalities in neighborhoods have become “the hallmark of many metropolitan areas” in the United States.
Heather Moody, Ph.D., an associate professor at GVSU in the Department of Geography and Sustainability Planning, will be teaching the course next semester. Moody’s work focuses primarily on environmental justice, environmental health disparities, water and food security, citizens science and collective community interdependence. Moody said the course aims to provide students with the opportunity to look at the areas around them and identify how those areas were built from inequality.
“It’s about the relationship between economic, social and political structures and geography,” Moody said.
The course will examine ethnic and segregation patterns and their impact on metropolitan areas. Moody said the course will feature a section of study on racial segregation and class, as those tend to go hand in hand.
“This is mostly going to be metropolitan study, but I also want to throw in their indigenous landscapes as well because they (those landscapes) are also segregated but tend not to be in metropolitan areas,” Moody said. “We’re going to look at the patterns of how (indigenous peoples) lived and the resulting patterns of access to opportunities.”
A freshman in the GVSU School of Social Work, Mar Brown was interested in what the new course would be teaching, and the way opportunities correlate with a geographical location.
“I would be interested in taking this course,” Brown said. “I feel it’s important I learn and understand other cultures of people around the world especially in America because we are considered a ‘melting pot.’”
Along with students leading and participating in a discussion on the readings, each student enrolled with have an opportunity to research a case study. Moody hopes to add multiple field trip opportunities to the course to enhance students’ learning.
Students who take this course will have a better understanding of the world they live in and how segregation and class impact metropolitan areas. The course will take place Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m., and will be in Mackinac Hall in room D-1-221. More information about “GYP 380: Race, Ethnicity and Place,” can be found in the GVSU course catalog.