Students at Cabrini University are exposed to way more than most college students. Cabrini offers several courses that aim to expand students’ perceptions about many social justice issues like family, gender, class, power, privilege, equality and so much more. Engagements with the Common Good, or ECG as it is commonly called, presents students with the opportunity to learn about issues that may not have been taught in their high school years.
There is an ECG course offered at Cabrini this semester that highlights all of the issues with immigration. The course is called Coming to America. This class explores the issues of immigration and discoing everyone’s roots.
This course is taught by Cabrini University librarians Cynthia Ross and Anne Schwelm.
“I like to start at the very beginning to show that we are all immigrants of some sort, one of the first assignments I have my class do is for them to do family trees to see where their roots come from,” Ross said.
This course is a ECG 100 course so it is particularly set aside for first year students. One of the things that this course also teaches is how to properly conduct research and use citations. Anne Schwelm teaches this particular part of the course.
“After taking this course students should know when information is needed, how to evaluate information, where to gather information and how to put it into the appropriate citation format,” Schwelm said, “The students should become information literate.”
ECGs are required by all Cabrini students throughout their first three years of their education here. Students have a choice of either taking a ECG in the fall semester or the spring semester. ECG 100 courses are offered at four credits while ECG 200 and 300 are only three credits.
There is one book assigned for this class and it is called, “From Every End of This Earth” by Steven V. Roberts. This book tells the story of 13 different families and how they moved over to America from various different countries.
“At the end of this class students should know their roots and where they come from and to develop and enhance a tolerance for immigrants,” Ross said.
“Cabrini is one of the only schools that integrates a writing and research component into a freshman seminar and the librarians are so excited to be apart of this groundbreaking curriculum,” Schwelm said.
“I integrated this class because of Mother Cabrini and everything that she did as the patron saints of immigrants,” Ross said, ” I like to honor Mother Cabrini and her passion for immigrants.”
