Bodies and Citizens

Bodies and Citizens was a class taught by Dr. Dudley-Shotwell that I took my first semester at Longwood University. When in high school all you hear about it how hard the transition between high school and college can be for an individual; however, this class helped me in order to transition easier than the average student. Dr. Dudley-Shotwell’s class was focused on preparing us for the next four years as well as showing my fellow peers and I what it means to be a citizen leader according to Longwood University and the Cormier Honors College’s vision.

In order to define citizenship as a whole, Dr. Dudley-Shotwell chose to study the development of citizenship throughout time in America specifically. Many groups in society, such as Native Americans and the LGBTQ+ community, have received unequal treatment by American citizens resulting in these individuals being classified as lesser citizens even through our government has time and time again declared every individual equal under the law. Within this class we read countless articles that demonstrated the unequal treatment these individuals face. After exploring so many examples of unequal citizenship within my country I have come to see what being a citizen leader means: a old cliché line-treat others how you want to be treated.

The artifact below demonstrates the average assignment from in this class that taught my classmates and I what a citizen leader is and what to expect from future classes. After reading assigned articles, we often had group discussions in order to discuss how the reading related to the class. In this group discussion, she had us do a writing assignment specifically focused on what it means to police sexuality to help us understand policing and how it affects LGBTQ+ citizens within our country.