Two faculty members from the Marquette Core Curriculum and University Honors Program received the 2026 Way Klingler Teaching Enhancement Award:
- Dr. Michael Olson, director of the Marquette Core Curriculum and teaching associate professor of philosophy
- Dr. Amelia Zurcher, director of the University Honors Program and professor of English
The award grants $20,000 toward their project, “The Marquette Core Culminating Course as Citizens’ Assembly,” which will educate students in how to discuss and debate with open minds and empathy. The award will help faculty develop and offer a version of CORE 4929/H, the Marquette Core Curriculum culminating course, as a citizens’ assembly.
Citizens’ assemblies are a form of participatory democracy rapidly gaining ground in the United States and across the globe. As an educational practice, they promise to be a powerful form of collaborative experiential learning.
This new course, to be piloted in Honors in spring 2027 and scale by AY 2028-09 to 12 sections annually, builds on the successful Deliberation in Action curriculum in CORE 1929/H. The curriculum, developed by Zurcher and her colleagues, was offered to 600 students this year.
The proposed curriculum for CORE 4929 would create a more integrated, full-circle experience in the MCC, improve significantly the ability to meet the MCC learning outcome “citizens with purpose,” build students’ skills across majors and colleges in civic reasoning and collaborative problem solving, and answer the call from Jesuit organizations such as the International Association of Jesuit Universities to educate students more fully and pointedly for the demands of democracy.
Committee on Teaching members praised the “full circle” dimension of the project utilizing the culminating course for the Marquette Core Curriculum, compelling assessment data on earlier iteration, and broad impact among students across all undergraduate colleges.
“I am excited to see how the collaborative experiential learning project addresses the urgent need to teach students how to weigh different points of view, critically examine evidence and productively engage disagreement, skills ever more important in this polarized environment,” said Dr. Debbie Tahmassebi, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “This project prepares students for participation in a diverse democratic society and the construction of a more just world.”
The Way Klingler Teaching Enhancement Award is an annual award given to a team of two or more faculty members to develop, implement and evaluate a specific teaching project. One award of up to $20,000 is given to the selected project team for one fiscal year.
