Inscription is liberating

Our final lecture for Freshman Seminar was conducted by Dr Dana Williams, who was one of our advisors for the course. During this lecture, Dr. Williams informed us of the purpose of the Freshman Seminar course, which was to help the students gain a sense of independent discovery. Then, Dr. Williams proceeded to tell us the six basic components of research. These steps consisted of the statement of the problem or challenge, current state of research, methodology, framework, development of the thesis, and conclusions. Dr. Williams defined the different ways that these components could be used and then related them to the development of the Freshman Seminar class. This is how we were able to learn what the purpose of the class was and what was expected of us as students. I had wondered why we seemed to learn about African history and about different important historical figures in Black History, and her presentation was able to show me that the purpose of the class was to instruct students about the different aspects of African culture and history that we did not know because of the Diaspora. Then Dr. Williams told us of the different objectives of the lessons. They were supposed to aid the students with Memory and Awareness, which would help us to regain the knowledge that had never been taught to us in our schools. I find it interesting that the entire point of Freshman Seminar was to make us more knowledgeable about what our schooling and our communities thus far have kept us ignorant of. We were given the opportunity to learn that inscription could be a liberating practice.

Shayna McCormack