Writing Beyond the Curriculum: Latin American Themes Spur Innovative Pedagogy

This brief paper describes a series of initiatives at one university in the Midwest, where faculty combined a humanities-driven focus on Latin America with our STEM-heavy curriculum, creating new courses and programs for students in all majors. The primary goal was increased cultural and communicative understanding among our engineering majors through opportunities for in-depth humanities-based study, while increasing engagement with international issues and experiences among our humanities majors. Faculty from humanities and STEM disciplines collaborated to integrate humanities pedagogy with existing programs in Latin America in order to improve cultural understanding and communication skills in undergraduate students across all majors. We met these challenges through new offerings of culturally-focused coursework, academics-focused study-abroad trips, cross-disciplinary courses, and experiential learning activities.