DPO Foundations Courses

DPO Foundations Rationale

The inequitable distribution of social, economic, and political power in the United States and globally is sustained through systems of oppression, which represent a variety of discriminatory institutional beliefs and practices. These beliefs and practices obscure the origins and operations of systemic oppression in daily life, such that this inequitable power distribution is assumed to be the natural order. The Difference, Power, and Oppression requirement engages students in critical reflection on the complexity of the structures, institutions, and ideologies that sustain systemic oppression, discrimination, and the inequitable distribution of systemic power and resources within and across communities. Such examinations will enhance and promote responsible, ethical, and anti-racist engagement in our diverse university community and society in the United States and beyond.
 

DPO Foundations Learning Outcomes

Students in DPO Foundations will:

  1. Explain how ascribed differences are socially constructed, change over time, and impact our and others’ lived experiences.
  2. Articulate– using historical and contemporary examples – how ascribed differences, combined with inequitable distribution of power across cultural, economic, social, and/or political institutions, result in racism and intersect with other forms of systemic oppression.
  3. Describe how assets and resilience demonstrated by members of systematically marginalized communities and cultures play a role in dismantling racism and other systems of oppression.
     

DPO Foundations Criteria

Courses in DPO Foundations will:

  1. Be at least 3 credits and be at the 100-200 level.
  2. Be capped at 50 students, (larger lectures with recitations capped at 25 are acceptable). Proposed exceptions to class size caps should be justified through the course proposal process and will be reviewed on an on-going basis by the Bacc Core Committee and the Difference, Power, and Oppression Director.
  3. Be regularly numbered departmental offerings rather than x99 or blanket number courses.
  4. Provide opportunities for students to reflect thoughtfully on their own identities and positions in relation to systems of oppression.
  5. Focus primarily on Difference, Power, and Oppression in the United States, although global contexts and impacts of the United States are encouraged.
  6. Provide illustrations of ways in which structural, institutional, and ideological oppression arise from socially defined meanings attributed to difference.
  7. Provide historical and contemporary (last 10 years) examples of difference, power, and oppression across cultural, economic, social, and/or political institutions.
  8. Provide examples of ways in which oppression and privilege occur differently along intersecting identities.
  9. Incorporate inclusive pedagogy activities and strategies (e.g., low-risk and ungraded, classroom discussion, small group work, debates, idea mapping, readings from diverse voices, contract grading, and labor-based grading).
  10. Include learning materials that are authored or created by people of protected status (statuses as defined by OSU’s discrimination and discriminatory harassment policy) that illustrate the resilience of their communities and how these assets are used to dismantle systems of oppression.
  11. Require instructors and recitation instructors to have ongoing training and continuing education (at least once every other year or as defined by the DPO director while teaching DPO) in intersectionality and/or other forms of social justice theories. Option for co-teaching with faculty with more expertise in DPO is encouraged as applicable through Memorandums of Understanding.
  12. Not create unreasonable barriers for students seeking to fulfill this category, including prerequisites, class‐level restrictions, and college and major restrictions.