Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Martha Nowacki
Loras College
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Loras College’s mission statement claims that due to being a Catholic and liberal arts
college, it will create a “community of active learners, reflective thinkers, ethical decision-
makers and responsible contributors in diverse professional, social and religious roles” (Loras
College mission statement). Those who attend the college have the opportunity to broaden their
knowledge base from a wide range of academic options, belong to extracurricular groups, and
grow personally. Students walk out of Loras on graduation day set apart from other college
graduates, because of the liberal arts basis—not just having focused on one discipline, but having
been subjected to various perspectives. Personally, out of the four dispositions that make up the
Loras liberal arts education, I have grown most as an active learner and ethical decision-maker.
Also Loras has helped me become better at making connections and seeing the bigger picture of
things. I know now that so many pieces of my Loras experience are related, instead of being
understand why things were the way they were and how they came to be. Whenever something
did not make sense to me, I would be prompt to ask questions, because understanding was and
continues to be so important to me. I came into Loras with that internal push of wanting the
answers as well as explanations, but that was that. I had the drive, but my experiences at Loras
helped me to become a perfected learner. Instead of standing at the edge of the cliff and getting
my answers, Loras literally threw me off the edge so that I could learn to fly, and from here I will
keep flying. I think that being an active learner is one of the most important dispositions, because
the act of learning and being open to learn new things helps one become a more intelligent
person, both “book” wise and “people” wise. By learning new things and gaining higher
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intelligence, you can have conversations with just about anyone. Specifically, I would be able to
relate my learnings to other peoples’ life experience no matter what they are.
One of the elements of an active learner is that they value opportunities of diverse
experiences, because diversity encourages learning. Before coming to Loras, I did not know
anything about other cultures, but my experiences at Loras led me to gain more of a cultural
understanding. Two courses in particular and their coursework were central in prompting
students to think outside the box (the box being the culture into which they were born), in order
to not only become more accepting of others but to see the similarities between cultures that, on
the surface, seem entirely different. In my Cross-Cultural Psychology class, one of our
assignments directed us to attend several cultural events during the semester and write journal
entries about the experiences. In doing this I learned about many cultures, including the
Marshallese and Muslim communities. I was able to witness a traditional group dance by the
Marshallese people, which was both unique and beautiful. In the same class, we were also
instructed to compose our own ethnographic paper by completing interview research. We had to
pick two different cultures and interview someone belonging to that culture for an hour or so. I
chose to interview a girl from Colombia and an elderly woman from Ireland. This not only
forced me out of my comfort zone, but it helped me see the differences and similarities of two
cultures. Through this class and its assignments, it opened my eyes. Instead of ignoring or rather
being ignorant of other cultural contexts, I now embrace them. I seek out learning material from
other cultural perspectives, and this class even prompted me to take other classes at Loras
dealing with culture: Culture and Psychopathology, World Religions, Gender and Society,
Before beginning classes at Loras, I had no idea how to effectively research a topic and
find credible sources on that topic. I also was not very articulate with presenting information.
Presentations in high school were my absolute greatest fear, and I hated them. However, my
experiences at Loras have helped shape the piece of active listening dealing with using reliable
learned material. One example I can think of improved my research skills and communicating
those research findings into a paper was the research proposal assignment in Research Methods
and Statistics II. In this class, after learning all about statistics and the components of research, I
was able to come up with an issue, suicide and its relationship to bullying in adolescents, and
create an entire research paper that proposed a study that could be done concerning this
relationship. Through this experience, and course, I learned how to write a thorough APA
(American Psychological Association) styled paper. After taking Research Methods I and II, I
was then invited to become part of the advanced research team at Loras. Through that
experience, I was able to perform an actual study with a small group of students and present the
findings in a poster presentation at the Loras Symposium, thus further improving my research,
Along with these experiences, I have also enhanced my resource finding skills pertaining
to a social problem, as well as collaborating with peers to present the findings to a class, in the
sociology course, Social Problems. For this project, we were each supposed to write down our
top four social problems that we would be interested in research/presenting on. One of my last
problems was racism. It definitely was not my first choice, but Dr. Anderson advised two other
students and myself to research institutional racism. I learned so much about the prevalence and
progression of this problem in our society, through scholarly research, collaborating with my
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group members, and presenting our cohesive presentation to the class—I learned much more
than I thought I would. In doing this project, our group attended a speaker event at Loras in order
to collect more information, which made the experience that more worthwhile. We were able to
connect and implement things that we learned within the speaker event into our own
presentation. We learned that despite racism not being as obvious as it once was, it is still a
dimensions. Ever since I was little, I loved making art of my own (drawing, painting, coloring,
and writing) and was in constant awe of other peoples’ ability. Creating something, whether that
be through writing a poem or painting a landscape, is like a signature—it’s yours and you have
produced something beautiful. Loras has helped me to both express my artistic abilities and learn
while making use of them. Specifically, in my Sensation and Perception class, I remade a
drawing of a hallucination that a young girl was having due to her schizophrenia. In order to
cope and try to help people understand her disorder, drawing out her hallucinations was an
effective tool. Along with my re-creation of her hallucination, I researched art and its benefits for
people living with schizophrenia. I was able to compile my research, reflection, and drawing into
one document. Along with this example, I took a class called Creative Non-Fiction Writing, in
which I wrote a variety of pieces, each revolving around a certain theme (personal life story,
question/reflective essay, and literary journalism). In taking this class, I was able to gain more of
an appreciation for authors and the art of writing. I learned that within non-fiction literature, one
can show their creative side, making the piece come alive.
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Just as I thought of myself as a fairly active learner before attending Loras, I perceived
myself as an ethical individual as well. Treating others with compassion has continued to be a
defining factor of who I am as a person, and this includes animals too. I think one of the reasons
why compassion has stuck with me through life is because of my faith in the Catholic religion. I
have never once in my life doubted the claim that Jesus loves everyone, and that all of God’s
creation should be treated with kindness. In my mind, all people and things are deserving of love,
which aligns with the Catholic tradition/values. As my time at Loras comes to an end, I can think
Obviously, because Senior Seminar is based on ethics and ethical issues that arise in
psychology, I have further improved my reasoning about ethical dilemmas and moral problems.
In class, we learned about the code of ethics pertaining to psychologists and the number of
principles that they need to abide by in order to practice, several ethical issues presented on by
students (animal research, use of deception, torture, psychotherapy, etc.). We also wrote a paper
about one of the ethical issues presented on, but it could not be the same topic we presented on
torture and argued that torture is both unethical and ineffective, and therefore it should not be
used. In the paper, I found reliable research against the use of torture, but also found a few
sources to set up counterarguments and rebuttals. By researching about the ethics on torture and
finding evidence for my claim, I improved my skill of reasoning with ethical dilemmas.
Another project that has helped me to develop reasoning with ethical dilemmas was a
website making assignment that I had to complete for Physiological Psychology. For this project,
we each had to create a website that contained several ways of presenting information on
the debate on why addiction is a disease and not a choice. Based on my research findings, I
concluded that addiction was in fact a disease of the body and mind, in which both become
dependent on the drug. I included videos, infographics, images, and case studies in order to
creatively state my point. Another element of the ethical-decision making disposition is that one
acts in ways that are consistent with their beliefs, and this project helped me to practice just that.
Because of my study of psychology and family situations, I never believed addiction was a
choice, so asserting this in a project was my way to practice speaking up according to my beliefs.
develop in valuing the Catholic tradition, building a community of faith, and being a leader,
through an experiences at Loras. Like I said earlier, I had always been secure in my faith, but I
never taken an active role in building the faith community, or for that matter being a leader. I
envisioned myself as a leader, but was too shy to consider myself a true leader. However, all of
this changed when I decided to be part of the Antioch retreat team. On this three day retreat away
from campus, my position was one of the chapel team leaders. We planned prayers, a skit, and
prayed for speakers while they gave their talks. Even though we were not front and center, we
worked tirelessly in the background. In nervously deciding to sign up as a chapel team leader, I
gained confidence in myself as a leader and someone who can help bring a community of people
together. I also learned more about myself and others in terms of the faith.
Along with becoming an active learner and ethical decision-maker, Loras has provided
me with a variety of courses, and in some cases required me to be in classes that I would not
have chosen, due to the liberal arts piece of the college education. Despite my initial annoyance,
taking multi-disciplinary courses has revealed a number of connections that can be made.
Although I have made several connections between courses and activities, the three that have
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stood out the most are as follows: in connecting Cross-Cultural Psychology and Culture and
Psychopathology, one thing that Dr. Grinde stressed in Cross-Cultural was that before going into
a culture, you have to have an open mind or open slate. You cannot let your culture influence
how you see another, putting your judgements aside. Just because something is abnormal in one
culture, does not mean it is perceived in the same way in a different culture. Throughout Culture
and Psychopathology, we have learned a very similar set of ideas to that of Dr. Grinde’s lectures.
For example, in a chapter about PTSD within one of our texts, we learned that western therapy
does not work or apply everywhere in the world. Just because we use it, does not mean other
countries do or would benefit from it. Specifically, the use of trauma therapy for individuals in
Sri Lanka hinders the healing process, because they have a very different set of beliefs—getting
back into the community is encouraged, physical instead of psychological symptoms are seen,
and social impacts are more common (Watters, 2010). Culture and Psychopathology has given
me examples to apply back to Cross-Cultural. Both of these classes really bounced off of one
another, and by taking Cross-Cultural before the other culture class, I was in a sense prepared
Secondly, before really delving into my major of psychology, I was able to connect
psychology to my MOI topic, Hurricane Katrina. In my final paper for the class, I wanted to
somehow bring in my discipline of interest. While researching about the natural disaster, I found
information about the psychological effects that it had on the community and the pre/post
Katrina mental health system in Louisiana. In writing this paper, it made me realize just how
relatable psychology is to other factors. Because the discipline is so adaptable, if you will,
conversing with others who are not psychology oriented and are involved with other disciplines,
can be done. And since taking MOI, I have discovered more discipline centered connections that
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can be made in regards to psychology. Concepts in both sociology and social work mirror
concepts in psychology, such as the micro/macro system of the individual, therapy, mental
illness, etc. Besides the social sciences, I have also made connections between the classes,
Creative Non-Fiction Writing and Chemistry of Art with psychology. In the former of the two, I
was able to improve my writing skills, which is important in psychology, and in the latter I
connected the sensation and perception aspect of psychology to learning about what art and
Lastly, the versatile academic opportunities at Loras has helped me connect classes so
that I can understand better. I decided to take World Religions as an elective, because I had a
hole in my schedule so I thought this class would fit somewhat with psychology (diverse
background of people). This class helped me in understanding aspects of another class that was
part of the advanced general education at Loras, Pilgrims in Their Own Land. Due to taking
World Religions prior to the other class, it made the main topics clearer/easier to understand:
Judaism, the African American church, and Islam. I found myself constantly remembering that I
had learned the same thing before in World Religions, which was a nice precursors to Pilgrims in
Thanks to Loras and all the opportunities it has provided me, especially its emphasis on
the liberal arts, I was able to grow tremendously. Throughout these four years, I have learned so
much about myself, others, and the world around me. I have become a perfected active learner
and ethical decision-maker, as well as become equipped to make connections between differing
topics. Loras has helped me become the person I am today, and has impacted my future goals for
the better.
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References
Watters, E. (2010). Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. New York, NY:
Free Press.