The University of Kentucky may see a spike in enrollment in the next couple of years, and not only because of its stellar basketball team.
This semester, the course offerings at UK consist of all the favorites, and even feature a couple of new names.
One of these newbies, a course called “Taco Literacy,” is generating quite the stir as it seeks to provide both great food and the right environment to discuss bigger topics covered in the course.
Taught by professor Steven Alvarez, “Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the U.S. South” has a syllabus requiring students to consume and rate their taco experience, which facilitates important conversations regarding food, culture and social issues in the South, Huffington Post reports.
While courses like “Taco Literacy” certainly sound satisfying to both the intellect and the palate, APU students responded to what courses they would feature if they had the choice. Responses varied from serious to not-so-serious, but highlights included everything from scuba diving to empathetic history.
Rachel Mallasch, a sophomore film major, said that scuba diving would be a worthy addition to APU’s current offerings. Already in possession of her certification, Mallasch believes scuba diving would be an avenue to future opportunities.
“[Scuba diving] opens the door to traveling…and the scuba world is a really good community. It would just be cool,” Mallasch said.
Another student, sophomore Christian ministries major Cameron Rose, offered swing dancing as a class that would be worthwhile for APU to add.
“I can’t dance, so it’d be cool to actually improvise real dancing…like swing dancing and waltz and stuff,” Rose said.
Others suggested more serious topics, and, like “Taco Literacy,” offered a creative way to explore modern cultural and sociological issues.
Logan Hughes, a sophomore history major, offered the idea for a course called “historical empathy,” in which historical events are discussed in order to analyze the way they’re normally taught and to explore beyond the bounds of the typical history book.
“A lot of times in history books and classes you’re told who is good and who is bad…and we accept it at face value and move on without trying to empathize…to figure out why they did what they did and the rationale behind it,” Hughes said. “So a class that goes into the why of things.”
Hughes raises an interesting point, as even in the case of “Taco Literacy,” a class is not always limited to its title.
In fact, it seems that classes like these provide not only a great opportunity to explore something fun and unique, but also a way to investigate common social issues that might not get a lot of attention otherwise.
“This [Taco Literacy] class allows our students to explore the issues of immigration, inequality, workers, intercultural communication and literacy through the prism of food,” Alvarez explained in an article by the Huffington Post.
Perhaps APU could think about adding classes like these for the obvious “fun” value and the academic element as well. As it turns out, we have something to learn from everything, even if it is our next meal.