Enhancing Racial Understanding: A Class Visit to a Black University

Abstract

After 20 years, students recalled a race relations class as one of their most meaningful and profound educational experiences. The course, taught in the “deep South” during the early 1970s by a licensed psychologist, included experiential components: a required seven-day, live-in home visit and a visit to a predominantly black college or university. These experiential aspects provided important opportunities for students to explore racial attitudes and beliefs that had been discussed in class, in “real world” contexts. Twenty years later, black and white students were interviewed about their recall of the significance of the course, the live-in home visit, and the visit to a black institution. Observations are included which may be of benefit to others who consider designing a similar educational experience.