“The Knapsack Institute: Transforming the Curriculum” Goes National!
Over the summer, for the sixth year, the Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies Programs hosted
our curriculum transformation workshop for faculty who teach, or are interested in teaching, issues
of diversity: gender, race, class, sexuality, etc. This year, the workshop was renamed “The
Knapsack Institute: Transforming the Curriculum” was expanded to three days (June 13-15), and
was open to faculty from around the country. Response was tremendous!
The name, “The Knapsack Institute” hails from Peggy McIntosh’s renowned article,
"White privilege and male privilege: A personal account of coming to see correspondences through
work in women's studies,” in which she states:
"I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can
count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious. White
privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps,
guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks." (Peggy
McIntosh, 1988)
The Institute was facilitated by Abby Ferber, Andrea Herrera and Dena Samuels. And focused on
providing attendees with a knapsack full of useful tools to use to begin (or continue) to teach the
concepts of privilege and oppression in the classroom. Guest speakers included Lynda Dickson,
Christina Jimenez, John-Michael Warner, and Tre Wentling, all from UCCS, as well as renowned
Men’s Studies scholar and philosopher Harry Brod.
The Knapsack Institute provides educators with a framework for teaching about privilege and
oppression, as well as a forum for sharing ideas and strategies as well as hands-on activities for
the classroom.
About half the participants were UCCS faculty, while the other half came from institutions around
the country, including Temple University and UCLA. In addition to college faculty, participants
included a high school teacher from Tampa, FL and a staff member from the Southern Poverty Law
Center. Participants also hail from a range of disciplines, including sociology, English, nursing,
math, engineering, and public safety. Evaluations were outstanding, and clearly this Institute is
meeting a strong need. Plans are already under way for next year’s Institute!
For more information about the Institute, visit:
http://www.uccs.edu/~knapsack/
Is a forum for sharing ideas and
strategies