Ellen: The idea behind the Ignite seminar is that faculty are invited to design a course for first-time new students that's rooted in who they are as teachers and scholars, what they're passionate about, and that allows them to share those deep commitments with students and invite students to explore their own deep commitments. But otherwise, it's really open. So, Carolyn, what are your ideas for an Ignite seminar? 

Carolyn:  I'd like to propose an Ignite Seminar entitled "Owning the Awkward." At my own core, I am an educator and a community builder. For context, I have 20 years of experience supporting undergraduate students as a student affairs professional, and my research focuses on neurodivergence (specifically the experiences of autistic college students). In addition, I have a lot of personal experience with awkwardness! This course would examine the phenomenon of awkwardness from various angles. We’ll explore its connections with our individual perceptions, cultural influences, and the way we interpret the world around us. The first-year college is ripe with awkward situations. 

Ellen: So why that topic, Carolyn?  One of the ideas of the Ignite seminar is to give students a concrete dynamic example of what it looks like to have an intellectual life that's rooted in who you are as a whole person. How does how does this topic link deeply into who you are? How will you be able to make it visible for students in a first-year course? 

Carolyn: Well, there’s a visible awkwardness in nearly everything I do! 

I experience life as a queer, neurodivergent woman with ADHD. I frequently bristle with compulsory assumptions and norms and, for much of my life, attributed discomfort or misunderstanding to something inherent to me. But awkwardness is often a social convention. Developing both an understanding of that awkwardness and self-awareness can help students learn how to navigate their own awkward moments and awkwardness for others in the community. In essence, it’s a crucial aspect of being in community together.   

Ellen: In the Ignite seminar, the approach differs from traditional course learning outcomes rooted in specific disciplines. Instead, it is grounded in the Ignatian pedagogical paradigm, focusing on five key steps: starting with deep context, moving into experience, reflecting on that experience, acting based on reflection, and finally, evaluating the cycle. It seems to me that you are really inviting rich, rich context by inviting students to think about awkwardness in themselves and around them. You get so many students from so many different majors. How do you envision this exploration of awkwardness in the Ignite seminar resonating with students from diverse academic backgrounds? Given that students may come from various majors, how do you see this topic fostering intellectual connections beyond your own discipline, not just at an experiential level but on an intellectual level as well? 

Carolyn: Awkwardness is a phenomenon that transcends disciplinary boundaries. It's not confined to one specific field but spans various disciplines. For instance, biological responses are associated with awkwardness, such as sweating and heightened anxiety.  

My approach is to ask students to consider how awkwardness manifests in their discipline or interests, encouraging students to explore its relevance in their context. Instead of providing all the answers, I want to invite students to explore awkwardness from several vantage points.   

In most professions, navigating awkward conversations and situations is part of each day. In healthcare settings, you talk with patients about bodies and behaviors. In business, you talk about money and sometimes how you lost money! Engineers, lab scientists, and athletes work in teams and share successes and failures. This social dimension of awkwardness is a common thread that runs through various disciplines. We all engage in interactions as professionals, scholars, and members of a community. My ideas are still evolving, but I invite students to bring their future selves and aspirations to our conversations. 

Ellen: I’m also thinking about leadership and how being comfortable with awkwardness and sensing it in a room is crucial for effective leadership. Noticing awkward moments can be an indicator that there might be something that needs attention in your role as a leader. Handling awkward situations, whether in yourself or others, is also critical for leaders. 

This topic is relevant because we have many business majors, students interested in entrepreneurship, and even graduates focusing on higher education leadership. And, of course, there are student leaders and activists who may not have this as their major but engage in extracurricular work that could greatly benefit from these discussions. 

When pitching the course, especially considering the Ignite seminar portal's request for a concise description of about 50 words, thinking about the diverse student audiences that can benefit from these conversations is crucial. You'll need to craft a pitch that appeals not only to students in your field or related fields but also to students from across the university. 

You mentioned research, and it's worth noting that the Ignite seminar now serves as the platform where students receive their orientation to Pius Library and the broader library resources at SLU. This encompasses both digital resources and the physical structures of our libraries. Have you considered how research and the libraries might be part of this Ignite seminar? 

Carolyn: I haven't fully fleshed out the assignment yet, but I will start by having students identify a question about awkwardness that sparks genuine personal curiosity. The focus is on introducing students to the library resources and encouraging them to engage with materials that fuel their curiosity. The outcome of that research and engagement can be varied. Some may write a paper, present a slide deck, or create an annotated bibliography.  

Ellen: Absolutely, Carolyn. Many of these students won't take another class in our discipline. We're tasked with developing research projects that can transfer skills to other classes, whether in the core curriculum or their majors. I've taught the Ignite seminar twice now, and I think I am just drilling down now on “How do you identify something you're curious about?” These students often come out of a highly structured secondary school environment where their curiosity was not necessarily at the forefront. This course invites students to follow an idea down a rabbit hole in ways that satisfy that curiosity. It's also inviting us to find that playful approach to intellectual inquiry in ourselves that perhaps we haven't engaged with in a while because of our pressures and stress levels. This is a place to play. Which doesn't mean it's devoid of intellectual content. It's trying to illuminate the beginning of intellectual engagement for students. Intellectual engagement should come from who you are and from a sense of curiosity and wonder. 

Carolyn: And it’s not about enduring an assignment or enduring the requirements, but instead finding personal relevance and enrichment from the opportunity to engage in these ways.  

Ellen: So it's interesting to think about the research project and how it could be an annotated bibliography, but not necessarily. It could be a paper, but not necessarily.  It could genuinely be anything because there are no boundaries around how we ask them to engage with the library. Does it fit into this process of contextualized experience with opportunities for reflection and action? 

Carolyn: But I think the opportunity to invite students to engage in the sources at the library is also so important. I often think of citations as the receipts for sources, and those receipts show the student's role in the research: “I found it here, on this date, and got this out of it.”  

Ellen: It indicates where you are inserting yourself into a cultural, intellectual conversation. “I engaged with these sources” instead of “I am beholden to the sources.” I think inspiring that sense of agency in students is challenging. One way of doing it is by saying, “You matter, and what you are interested in matters, so you can make sources relevant as long as you show exactly how it illuminates the thing you want to illuminate.” 

Ellen: How is this topic a topic where you will be able to show, in practice, the Ignatian pedagogical paradigm? Either explicitly or implicitly? 

Carolyn: In this case, the topic lends itself to a course structure that naturally mirrors the IPP. We begin by establishing context—Who are we as individuals? Who are we as a community at SLU? What is awkwardness, and why is it worth exploring? 

We delve into personal experiences with awkwardness, grounding it in the students' own lives. We also share experiences in class, explore different aspects of awkwardness together, and actively engage with the material and one another.  

Reflection is where I ask students to think about their own context and experiences and identify a question that guides their own curiosity about awkwardness. The action phase naturally follows: You have identified a question about awkwardness. You have engaged with the resources. How does what you discovered inform your future actions?  

Finally, students end the course with an evaluative reflection that considers how their journey through this course allowed them to be their whole selves and shape our shared experience.  

Ellen: Like you, some faculty may put that Ignatian pedagogical paradigm at the forefront of what they're doing. Some focus very deeply, for instance, Ignite Seminars on the Ignatian City or an Ignatian approach to leadership. The IPP might not be as explicitly visible in other courses, yet it's underneath how a faculty member defines the course. And I think the really important takeaway for all students, whether the faculty member makes the IPP explicitly visible or not, is that we invite students to share who they are and that we share who we are, and that we create a rich sense of context as we enter a learning experience at Saint Louis University. 

As long as students leave this class feeling invited to bring their whole selves to the table as they engage in intellectual inquiry, we're doing it right.