Faculty Spotlight
Margot Morgan
Innovative and Creative with a Flair for the Dramatic, Margot Morgan is a National Award Winning Educator Bringing History, Politics, Theatre and Role-Playing Games Together
“Enthusiastic and entertaining.” “Amazing lectures.” “Super passionate and incredibly smart.”
These are just a few of the many accolades posted in reviews of classes taught by Margot Morgan, Ph.D. and associate professor of political science at IU Southeast since 2015. This high energy professor also serves as the American Democracy Project (ADP) campus coordinator and Model United Nations coordinator for both IU Southeast’s college and high school programs.
Morgan has been nominated by Honors students for the Faculty Recognition Award which she has won twice. She was awarded the 2018 Faculty Innovator of the Year due in part to her unique style and innovative approach to teaching political science. She has been at the forefront of utilizing Reacting to the Past (RTTP) – an active learning pedagogy of role-playing games designed for higher education. She was the 2021 National ADP John Saltmarsh Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement overall winner. She also served on the 2021-22 national ADP steering committee.
“The ADP is a network of nearly 300 state colleges and universities that focuses on promoting civic engagement and citizenship in a nonpartisan way,” said Morgan. “Civic engagement is the main focus in everything that I do, in my teaching and my service and my research. In the classroom, I do a lot of active learning. I use RTTP to put students in the position of having to debate issues. I really like it because it's historical. I'm not asking them to touch what's going on in American politics right now because that is too hard to do and be non-emotional. So we go to ancient Athens, and we have debates about democracy and whether it's the best form of government and why or if we should keep it. It gives students the opportunity to practice the skills that they need to be good citizens in a safe space - debating, thinking logically and making arguments. But in order to win the game, they also have to build alliances and coalitions to work together with other people that they might not agree with. I think if you're going to be a productive citizen in the United States of America in the 21st century, you're going to need to know how to talk to people you don't agree with, you're going to need to know how to find common ground with people you don't like and not just approach them as an enemy.”
Margot Morgan speaks at an event promoting IU Southeast’s School of Social Sciences
Morgot Morgan with participants of the 2021 Model UN team for college students
Margot Morgan
Nudging Students Out of Their Comfort Zone
The higher level political science classes where Morgan utilizes RTTP games are usually smaller. Extra players are often recruited from the Honors program and are rewarded with one credit hour for volunteering. The games themselves typically take four to six weeks to complete with a debriefing session afterwards. Some students are more introverted and decline to participate in the more theatrical elements of the game but other students really jump at the opportunity to get out of their comfort zones.
“Students get to look at things from their character’s perspective and become advocates for their characters,” said Morgan. “Last year I had an Honors student participate in the French Revolution game and she was assigned the role of rabble – the group of people who aren’t invited to the meeting but show up and heckle from the back of the room. Now, she’s a very shy student and oftentimes her other teammates didn’t show up to heckle, so she was on her own. Towards the end, she started coming in with a bullhorn and just started yelling and screaming. It was great to see her come out of her shell. After the game was over, she surprised me by asking if she could do a presentation on the pedagogy of the game. This very shy student took the initiative to go out and find people, put together a panel and they presented it in Cleveland, Ohio and it was amazing.”
Students holding handmade art expressing their inner bohemian as part of the role-playing game ‘Greenwich Village, 1913.’
Participants of the 2022 Model UN
2019 Model UN team
A National Leader in Engaging Students and Revitalizing the Classroom
Stuffy lectures and static assignments are a thing of the past in Morgan’s dynamic courses. Politics and history come alive and all of Morgan’s courses are designed to engage the students.
According to Morgan, there are three main skills that she wants them to develop from taking her classes:
Perspective taking – being able to see multiple viewpoints.
Collaboration – being able to work with other people.
Rational Judgement – being able to put your emotions aside and make a reasoned judgement.
“I think part of the draw is the playfulness; people love games because they are fun,” said Morgan. “The stakes are not super high – your grade is not dependent on winning the game, just participating and being engaged in some way. I think everyone likes to escape every now and then.”