Classes You Would Only Find at UNC Asheville

Fall 2020 Edition

By UNC Asheville

November 10^th, 2020

By: Tris Lashea '22

As a student at UNCA, I'm sharing a few of the classes that I find interesting and that truly showcase the uniqueness of UNC Asheville from all aspects of campus life, including curriculum.

FYS 178: Where I come from y adonde voy

In college, we are taught to always be focused on the future, and where we are going for the rest of our lives; but why not focus for a second on why you are here, your history, and who you are? This course is perfect to dive more into your own culture, while also exploring others’—primarily the Latinx community. Michelle Bettencourt, the associate chair and associate professor of the Spanish department at UNC Asheville, offered this course for the first time in fall 2020.

First-year seminars (FYS) are classes for first-year students introducing them to life at a liberal arts college, with a focus on things like time management, community, and interesting topics that we value at this campus. The title for this particular FYS class is bilingual, broadcasting the mix of the two communities coming together in a unique first-year seminar, where students can get more connected with themselves and their new community.

Classes You Would Only Find at UNC Asheville

“There's a lot of power in mixing it up and exposing students who have never had a Spanish class in their lives or met a native Spanish speaker in their entire lives to be in a class with people who are Latinx, and then can maybe broaden their awareness,” said Bettencourt.

Due to COVID, the class is being taught online, but Bettencourt has made it as interactive, engaging, and fun as possible and is very satisfied with the level of online education. Bettencourt visualizes this class as valuable to students of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds as they enter this college lifestyle.

“Just that knowing we have some common experiences, you understand, and that you can relate, you know where I'm coming from. I, myself, identify as Caucasian. I talked to students about how that lens impacts my perspective and how I can relate to that,” says Bettencourt, “But then I go on to share that I've been engaged with the local Latinx community for over 10 years, through my service-learning classes and my internships, and that I may not be Latinx, but I can bring Latinx community members to the class to share and to connect.”

“We use oral history to look at their identity, look at where they come from, and in particular the people in their lives to help them learn more about themselves as a way of reflecting and acknowledging their lives and how they go to college,” said Bettencourt.

Alex Rivera, a first-year student studying chemistry decided to take this class as a way of meeting more people in Latinx culture such as himself, while also engaging with other students who are interested in broadening their understanding of Spanish culture.

“It surprised me because there's not only Latinx people that are part of the class,” Rivera said. “But that makes me happy because other people are interested to learn Spanish and also learn more from Latin culture.”

He is enjoying the class and having fun making connections through the breakout rooms in the class sessions. In the breakout sessions, students get to check in with one another while also discussing topics on race, identity, and what it means to be you.

“I recommend the class if you want to learn more Spanish and about Spanish culture if you identify as Latino, Latina, or Latinx, or if you just want to learn more about yourself,” said Rivera.

Ruby Springsteen, a first-year student majoring in health and wellness promotion, says she chose this class as a way of taking a deeper look into who she is as she comes into college.

“What we do is we look at the past, where we've been, and we do that with interviews,” Springsteen said. “So we interview our families or people that helped get us to college. We examine our past then we talk about the transition into college and preparing for the future. We do mindfulness exercises. It's just a pretty fun class. We do practice Spanish, too,” said Springsteen.

This class allows students to get involved in their campus community as well as the Asheville community while learning more about themselves at a critical changing point in their lives.

To find out more about the first-year seminars at UNC Asheville, CLick Here.

Arts 310: Queer Arts and Queer Activism

Ever wondered about queer history and queer arts as subjects we were never taught in school? This Arts and Ideas course covers various topics around art, film, and history in the queer community as a way of connecting and finding out more information about this community in a unique way. Lori Horvitz, professor of English at UNC Asheville, is offering this course for the first time in the 20 years she has worked here.

Horvitz said that her students are enjoying learning about the queer movements of history, as they are still relevant today.

“My students are just so excited because they're also connecting this with what's going on now with Black Lives Matter and protests today,” said Horvitz. “And so it's very timely. One of my students said, ‘Wow, I'm so glad I'm taking this now because it's so relevant to today.’”

As the course might suggest, UNC Asheville is known as a queer-friendly place: Princeton Review included UNC Asheville on the national top 20 lists of LGBTQ+ friendly colleges and universities in the United States.

“This school, in general has a very queer-friendly student body and administration,” Horvitz said. “There's been a queer studies conference that I've been involved with every other year since I've been here. We get academics and creative people from all over the world coming to our conferences,” said Horvitz.

Horvitz hopes to use this class as a way to help students who are allies and queer-identified to learn about their history and how it is still relevant today.

“I think it's important, especially, for queer and queer allies to learn about this history and how it is so pertinent today, and how some of the protest actions and art of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s are pertinent today and how we could use some of those tactics to make statements today,” said Horvitz.

Mikalya Towns, a sophomore interested in anthropology and creative writing, said that she took this class as a way of learning about queer history.

“I've been wanting to learn about queer history for a while, as someone who is in the community, just kind of wanting to understand those kinds of concepts. Plus, I am an artsy person. I thought this would be a very interesting perspective to learn about queer history in a way that also shows how the culture was defined and created,” said Towns.

Towns stated that the combination of arts and history in the course has allowed her to engage more with the material.

"I personally really did enjoy learning about everything,” Towns said. “It's an interesting topic, and I feel I'm learning history and soaking it in because most of the time I usually don't remember the history that well.”

Cory McVeigh, a junior studying mechatronics engineering, decided to take this class as a way to venture beyond her usual engineering courses.

“It's been refreshing for me, even though it's online, to at least have that space for good discussion and intellectual conversation,” McVeigh said.

McVeigh has enjoyed learning new information about queer history that she’d never been exposed to before while connecting with people in the queer community.

“It's been great to just learn about so many things that we don't learn about in public education, at least before college,” McVeigh said. “It's something that everyone in the class is personally connected to in some way, whether that is from the position of an ally or someone who's personally a part of the community.”

Tori Royal, a senior majoring in women, gender, and sexuality studies, said they choose this course as a way to fulfill their major while also expanding on their knowledge about queer history.

“To learn about queer art and to learn about queer history has always been a passion of mine,” said Royal. “I took queer sociology, which was a really good class and I wanted to take this to expand on what I learned from that class. And I'm not let down at all because this class honestly is probably one of my most favorite classes that I've ever taken.”

Royal encourages everyone to learn more about queer history as a significant part of our collective history that often isn’t focused on as it should be.

“I think that everyone should learn about queer history, even as someone who actively studies queer history and has been doing it for years now, I'm learning so much in this class that I didn't know about. As well as it's structured in a way that's pretty easy to understand if you've never learned anything about queer history, you could still take this class and be able to keep up,” said Royal.

Amanda Gianetto, a transfer sophomore studying sociology with teaching licensure states that she chose this class because she is part of the community and has never learned this part of her history.

“It's not something that I've ever seen offered at other universities that I've been to, and then just being a queer-identifying person myself, it was a really exciting way to learn deeper and further into things that have cultivated representation for myself. It's not just about art, which has been interesting as well, but the social context behind it,” said Gianetto.