The Murray Governor’s Scholars Program (GSP) Cultural Anthropology class is taught by UK Professor and first year GSP teacher Blanca Munoz, the GSPost had the opportunity to visit with the Cultural Anthropology focus area to interview Blanca and learn more about the goal of the class.
The interview began with the basic coverage questions:
GSPost: Why did you decide to come work for the GSP?
Blanca: “I have heard of GSP for a while from my really good friend, Dr. Haley Hoffman, and she had been telling me about it for years. And I see her office just covered in all of these wonderful projects and letters and things that they’ve done. And, you know, she has these very unique ways of teaching in her classroom at the University of Kentucky. And in seeing her sort of work and bringing up that excitement every summer, I said, I think I should give it a shot and sort of take this as a new experience. And so I was really looking forward to working with Kentucky’s best and brightest.”
GSPost: Why did you decide to teach Cultural Anthropology in particular?
Blanca: “I was a freshman in college and I had gone in as a pre-law student. I thought I was going to go to law school afterwards, and I took this class, cultural anthropology, where it was just like an old-school kind of hippie, right? And he smelled like patchouli oil, long white beard, caftan wearing. And he was, you know, so passionate about what he taught that it, you know, I’m not going to tell you how long ago that class was, but I still remember a lot of the material that he introduced to us and just the love that he had for teaching us about what it means to be human. And so even though I never pursued a career in that, it was something that was always incredible to me.”
One of Blanca’s biggest reasons for wanting to teach Cultural Anthropology was to show that everyone had culture worth sharing, even if they didn’t think so. This outlook was especially necessary for her class this year; Blanca shared that in the first week, she heard one of her students say, “I’m white, I don’t have any culture.” Turns out, this student was from Eastern Kentucky, one of the most culturally rich areas in Kentucky, and throughout the five weeks they spent at GSP, Blanca helped show them all the culture they didn’t realize they had.
The five week plan that the cultural anthropology class covered began with the first week, detailing the idea: “What is culture?”. The second week asked, “How can we look past nationality, how do these cultures work within the US”. The last few weeks held their focus on traditions and aspects of life within a culture, with weeks three, four, and five breaking down Music and Food, Life and celebrations, and Death rituals respectively.
In the third week, Blanca’s class visited the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. When we asked about the importance of the quilts, Blanca explained that it was all about “the way things get memorialized and storytelling.” She told us, “quilts (are) a big part of American culture. And so it’s just really interesting to see how we sort of pass down these memories and capture what the family values are in these things like recipes and quilts and even just murals, right, and art.”
On top of being an amazing wordsmith, Blanca, as shared by her students, is an amazing teacher. One scholar told us, “Every day, I am excited to come into Blanca’s class because I know that she’ll always have something fun for us to do. Not only is she a great teacher; but a great role model. I see myself emulating a lot of her teachings in my everyday life now, which I wasn’t expecting.” When asked about what they thought of Blanca as a leader, another scholar shared, “As a leader, she is absolutely amazing, Blanca is smart and kind, and we can tell that she genuinely cares about us and our learning.” The students all agree that Blanca is both an amazing teacher, and an amazing person.
