OU announced it appointed Adrienne Carter-Sowell as the director of its Gateway to Belonging course — which will serve as one of three classes in a First-Year Experience suite following the passage of the Oklahoma House Bill 1775 — in a Thursday university email.
The Gateway to Belonging course was integrated into the university’s “Lead On, University'' strategic plan in July 2020. The course’s director is to serve in a faculty position where they can supervise the gateway course’s curriculum and coordinate an instructional faculty team, according to an email sent to The Daily by Joshua Nelson, the chair of the director’s search committee.
Carter-Sowell served as the associate head of diversity, equity and inclusion in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University. Her faculty appointment, pending OU Board of Regents’ approval, will be in the Department of Psychology, as she possesses an extensive background in social psychology, according to the Thursday email.
According to the email, she “recognizes students learn differently” and will vary her methods of presenting course information and assessments to “engage with, include and educate” her enrolled students.
“My observations have been that someone who really is excited about what they teach (is) able to connect with students,” Carter-Sowell said during her April 13 director town hall. “But you have to be flexible because just because you're excited doesn't mean you're effective. You have to be able to see where you need to make the adjustments so that your excitement is effective and contagious in the way that helps us stay on track.”
OU Director of Media Relations Kesha Keith wrote in an email to the Daily that the Gateway to Belonging class was originally a standalone course requirement, but because Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed HB 1775 into law May 7, the university had to adapt to the “changing landscape.”
HB 1775, originally an emergency bill regarding medical situations during high school sporting events, was rewritten into a bill implementing restrictions on certain gender and diversity theories being taught in schools. Keith wrote the university will take the next year to develop a First-Year Experience suite of three different courses, including the Gateway to Belonging, Global Perspectives and Engagement, and Ethical Leadership Development.
Keith wrote although students can choose to not take Gateway to Belonging or take the class as incoming students in the fall semester, they will have to fulfill the First-Year Experience General Education requirement with one of the three classes.
“Some incoming students may opt to take the Gateway to Belonging course in the spring, and some may decide to wait and take one of the other two courses in the suite when they are offered,” Keith wrote. “Like other General Education core with options, students will work with their (advisers) to select one and complete it to graduate.”
In a May 12 interview with The Daily, OU President Joseph Harroz said, when it came to the point that administration thought HB 1775 was coming, he knew it would have been easy to “fold up their tents.” He said the university chose to adjust because “no student should graduate without an understanding of people they’re not familiar with.”
Harroz said the commitment of these classes is that the university will always follow the law, but they will also remain focused on the pillars of its strategic plan because it is “committed to the students and their futures.”
“Let's put aside the place of belonging for students, let's just focus on pillar two and ask this question: ‘Can you really say as a university that you prepare your students for a life of meaning and impact if they come here, and early in their academic career, they don't understand others?’” Harroz said. “I don't believe you can.”
