Imagine going to your first college class, and as you sit down the professor starts bumping a track by hip-hop artist Brother Ali.
You haven't died and gone to hip-hop heaven - you are probably in Finnie Coleman's Intro to Hip-Hop Culture class. The freshman-learning-community course is only offered to incoming freshmen.
Coleman said incoming freshmen should be creative when they schedule their courses so they take a mixture of subjects.
"In their curriculum, they are going to have a lot of courses that are going to teach them about making a living," Coleman said. "But along with those courses it is important they learn about living. They need to pick a wide range of courses that they haven't had a chance to explore."
Coleman said his class begins with a broad discussion of African-American cultural history.
"Then we go through the various elements of hip-hop culture, beginning with old school and the five elements in old-school hip-hop, and then we move forward to contemporary issues and ideas in hip-hop culture," he said.
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Coleman said he began teaching the class at Texas A&M University 10 years ago. Many people were skeptical about the class when it started, he said.
"Reporters and television crews were in the classroom every week or so," Coleman said. "The first time I taught it there were alumni calling up saying they were never going to give another dime to the university. But once people got into the course and saw what it was about, and they could defend the course outside of my defending it, people came around and saw the value of it."
Coleman said his classes always fill up quickly.
"People know about the class, and I am usually flooded with people sitting in the aisle," he said. "It's also one of those courses that people end up bringing people with them to class - grandmothers, wives, husbands, sisters and cousins. It's usually standing room only when I teach upper-level courses."
Coleman said he values UNM students because many of them are very intelligent, but their professors aren't helping them find their motivation.
"I challenge them not to be students in my class but to be scholars," he said. "Most of them take that challenge and most of them do well. One of the sad things about education is oftentimes teachers bring their stereotypes of what students are into the classroom and that becomes the guiding factor to how well a student does."
Coleman said his class is popular with students of all types, especially athletes.
"Some of the highest grades I have given at UNM have been to student-athletes who really busted their tails to do the work," he said. "I had an athlete show up with a poster portfolio that you had to have two people to carry. When you put those kinds of challenges out there, all the students, and not just the student-athletes, rise to the occasion."
Coleman said he also teaches other upper-level classes offered in the African-American Studies program pertaining to African-American studies.
"I also teach a class that is titled 'Ta(l)kin(g) B(l)ack,'" Coleman said. "It's one of these courses where people come in thinking it's going to be an easy course and they are shocked. The good news is they don't leave once they figure out how much work is going to be involved."
