African & African-American Studies
Mosaic
The goal of Mosaic projects is to promote a synergistic dialogue among faculty and enhance student understanding of the Africa and African-American experience. Using a designated central theme, the project brings together faculty and students across campus.
Supporting Citizenship and Leadership
Project Mosiac is designed to aid student and faculty participation in Africa and African-American Studies as well as support Rollins' goal of promoting global citizenship and nurturing responsible leadership.
Overview
Mosaic projects are intended to highlight the intersection of the African Diaspora throughout western culture. These class projects will enhance the learning experience in participating classes by promoting an integrative understanding of the contribution made by people of African descendent while stimulating greater depth within the disciplinary core of each course.
The intent is for Project Mosaic to become a recurring campus project sponsored by the Africa and African-American Studies program and incorporating diverse thematic foci with rotating faculty participation. Ultimately, this model will aid student and faculty participation in Africa and African-American Studies as well as support Rollins' goal of promoting global citizenship and nurturing responsible leadership.
2014 Project Mosaic: Legacies
Developed as a vehicle to engage Rollins College students with the complexity represented by the Africa and African-American experience, Project Mosaic fosters a synergistic dialogue among faculty, students and the community. By including a module linked to Project Mosaic’s orienting theme, participating faculty from a variety of academic subfields have the opportunity to achieve greater depth within the disciplinary core of their course, while highlighting a link to the African Diaspora. By adopting a thematic focus, Project Mosaic represents a curricular model inspired by Rollins’ mission to educate students to be global citizens and responsible leaders by helping to build the cultural awareness necessary to function in a diverse global context.
During the Spring 2014 semester, Project Mosaic: Legacies asked participating faculty to incorporate an assignment that considers the impact of cultures, identities, structures, and practices linked to our past, contested by our present, which are shaping our future. These projects examine diverse subjects and spotlight both challenges and strengths linked to diaspora. In this way, Project Mosaic: Legacies is in dialogue with the Africa and African-American Studies program’s theme for 2013-2014, FUTURES.
2013 Project Mosaic: Witness
Developed as a vehicle to expose Rollins College students to the complexity linked to the Africa and African-American experience, Project Mosaic fosters a synergistic dialogue across academic disciplines. By including a module linked to Project Mosaic’s orienting theme, participating faculty have the opportunity to achieve greater depth within the disciplinary core of their course, while highlighting a link to the African Diaspora. Project Mosaic is inspired by Rollins’ mission to educate students to be global citizens and responsible leaders. Ultimately, Project Mosaic works to provide students with the tools to understand the complexity linked to ethnicity in a modern global context.
During the Spring 2013 semester, Project Mosaic: WITNESS asks participating faculty to incorporate an assignment that considers the impact of narrative in creating our world. The stories we tell act as powerful tools to orient people and institutions. For too long the canonical record has provided stories of systemic disorder about the Africa Diaspora. In recent time narratives reflecting individual and communal betterment have emerged to bring a multidimensional vision to the black experience. Incorporating lost voices clarifies events, uncovers hidden stories, and energizes marginalized people facilitating their engagement with the broader world. Project Mosaic: WITNESS is motivated by an understanding that the stories we tell ourselves help us value the past, appraise the present, and construct a vision for future.
2012 Project Mosaic: Migration
Migration or migratory behavior may refer to Biology, Ecology, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Computing, Physic, Chemistry, and other subject matter. In recent years, migration has provided the lens for comparative examination of policy, gender, education, immigration, citizenship, culture, and legal issues. Recognizing the migration of people, concepts, and ideas linked to the African diaspora has had a profound effect on the development of global culture.
During the Spring 2012 academic semester, faculty from the Anthropology, Economics, History, Mathematics, and Political Science departments incorporated a consideration of migration into their classes to support the Africa and African-American Studies Program. Topic as varied as fair trade, immigration, demographics, and community building serve to highlight the historic and contemporary legacy of migration linked to the African Diaspora.
2011 Project Mosaic: Zora Neale Hurston
Using the work of Zora Neale Hurston as a central theme, Project Mosaic infuses African-American subject matter into a wide array of academic disciplines from art and education to anthropology and history. In so doing, the project links a local minority subject to the wider socio-cultural experience, enhances awareness of Africa and African-American culture, and stimulates learning within the context of a liberal arts education.