ALEXANDER DIENER

My teaching philosophy is deliberately interdisciplinary. I encourage students to explore questions from a variety of perspectives too that they might recognize the interconnectedness of political, economic, social, cultural, and natural processes and phenomena. It is important to me that students not only ask ‘what’ is going on, but ‘why’ and then critically evaluate what they see, read, and hear. My courses compel active engagement with real-world problems in a manner that is designed to lead to their respective paths of purpose, service, and leadership. To be successful on those paths, students must develop skills of writing, speaking, researching, and organization. Skill acquisition is however only a partial goal of my courses and mentorship. Cultivating capacities for critical reading, critical listening, and the design of rigorous inquiry constitutes the core of my teaching/advising philosophy. I want students to develop a passion for learning and to embrace the vibrancy of a ‘life of the mind’. In essence, I want them to see that “awareness” is better than a “lack of awareness.” For this to be true, however, it is imperative that we consider how subjective values of different people and groups influence the world in which we live. I encourage students to critically evaluate their own and others’ claims to ‘truth’ and notions of ‘progress’ - not only in instrumentalist or functionalist terms but also in moral and ethical terms. Through this process, I speak to our collective sense of responsibility for the world and eschew social and political complacency. My classes balance theoretical literatures with empirical research. To be effective scholars of Geography and Global Studies, it is important to develop skills that facilitate knowledge of particular events and circumstances but also critically employ theory. Methodological skills are also essential, as the design of one’s research correlates to the profundity of the results. -- ‘Global Geographies’ offers a General Education point of entry to historical, environmental, economic, and political processes shaping the world. -- My upper division undergraduate courses delve deeply into themes such as migration, development politics, and socio-cultural/economic transition. -- I teach graduate level seminars compelling textured and critical explorations of social and geographic theory pertaining to regionalism, borders/borderlands, and place attachment.