In Project 1, students developed and implemented an interview protocol to understand how to set aside our personal biases and judgments, and listen openly and honestly. After reviewing the elements of semi-structured qualitative interviews, students wrote questions, practiced interviewing, assessed those interviews, improved their questions, and then conducted ‘real’ interviews with campus peers in order to assess aspects of the climate of inclusivity on campus. Through the development of codes based on themes related to belonging, culture, and identity broadly, students had access to 28 sets of data.

In Project 2, the website links for which are below, teams read one of eight Young Adult novels that address difficult questions of identity, isolation, bias, and rejection. These novels, written by individuals who experienced questions of identity and isolation, in addition to bias and rejection from others, served as a starting point for discussion and deep thinking about our course themes. Students were asked to pair humanities methods (such as close-reading) to analyze their novels and to make connections to the interview data gathered in Project 1. Students were tasked with developing a website that would highlight inclusive successes and challenges on the CMU campus. In addition, each student on the team chose to represent either the social sciences, the humanities, or data to compile a cohesive ‘picture’ of themes pertaining to feelings of belonging on our campus to guide the CMU community toward deeper understanding and acceptance practices.