Welcome to You Op to Know, The Daily Orange Opinion section’s weekly podcast.  

This week, Assistant Editorial Editor Michael Sessa and Student Life columnist Jennifer Bancamper discuss the importance of the School of Education’s new interdisciplinary minor: Atrocity Studies and the Practices of Social Justice.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com.

TRANSCRIPT

MICHAEL SESSA: Hello everyone, and welcome to this week’s edition of You Op To Know, The Daily Orange’s Opinion podcast. I’m your host and Assistant Editorial Editor Michael Sessa and I’m joined by our Student Life columnist Jennifer Bancamper.

JENNIFER BANCAMPER: Happy to be here!

SESSA: So tonight we’re going to talk about Jennifer’s recent column on the School of Education’s new interdisciplinary minor: Atrocity Studies and the Practices of Social Justice. How’d you hear about the new minor in the first place, and what drew you to write about it?

BANCAMPER: I actually heard about this minor when I was looking for inspiration for another column. I was just scrolling through the SU News page, and yeah, I just came across this title that said, you know, “SU school of education adds new atrocities studies minor.” And I wanted to write about it because it was something that I had never heard of before. You know, what is atrocities studies? What does it even involve?

SESSA: So what does the minor actually look like? What sort of courses would students who participate be taking?

BANCAMPER: So the minor actually has a lot of courses in different departments across the university. So there’s anthropology courses, religion, sociology, education. And they’re all essentially about studying parts of history and parts of human rights violations that, you know, when we look at them we can analyze it and see, okay, how did this go wrong, or what was the result of this, and how can we use that in the present.

SESSA: So there are some schools — from even elementary level up to colleges — that don’t teach students about atrocities. What do you think the importance is of students learning about that, and how could that fit into our modern politics?

BANCAMPER: Well, I remember when I saw this minor for the first time, I remember thinking it was very necessary for current politics and the global climate, especially at a time in history when I feel like social justice is at a peak. And I feel like being woke, or being aware, is kind of a requirement if you’re a human being nowadays. If I were to meet a racist 100 years ago, you know, they’d still be a racist, but it was 100 years ago, so everyone’s a racist. You meet a racist now, it’s a horrible thing, as it should be, and they should be condemned for that.

SESSA: So you got the chance to talk to Professor White from the School of Education, and she was saying that the atrocities minor could be beneficial for people who aren’t even looking to go into political science or history. So what do you think people who aren’t pursuing those sorts of degrees can take from a minor like that?

BANCAMPER: Well, I think just the idea of practicing social justice isn’t something that’s exclusive to, you know, students who focus on history or politics. It’s something that can, you know, can relate to any type of major. You know, because you shouldn’t be focusing on social justice because it’s something that you’re studying — it’s because you’re a human being and you live on this planet and you care about, you know, the well being of others and the well beings of other communities.

SESSA: Cool. Thanks for joining us.

BANCAMPER: Happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

SESSA: Stay tuned for next week’s edition of You Op To Know. And, as always, if you have any questions or comments or if you want to send us a letter to the editor, hit us up at opinion@dailyorange.com. We’ll talk to you next week!

Published on February 4, 2019 at 8:07 pm

Contact Michael: msessa@syr.edu | @MichaelSessa3