Ismael Montana is a Professor and Assistant Chair in the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dr. Montana taught an honors seminar in the fall 2025 semester titled, “The African Diaspora”
- Why were you attracted to offering an honors seminar?
In my nearly two decades at NIU, I have regularly taught honors mini-sections in almost every other semester and have always enjoyed the opportunity for that deeper engagement with students who chose the extra challenge entailed in our mini-Honors sections. I also had a great experience supervising a few Honors Capstones which I really cherished. Hence, offering an honors seminar this semester comes as natural culmination of the desire I have held over the years to support our students who are taking additional efforts toward academic success and distinction.
2. How do you teach your subject or specialty to an interdisciplinary group of Honors students?
In general, teaching courses in my area of specialty is deeply rooted in my own diverse academic training and research specialization, which span modern African history, slavery and its abolition in Northwest Africa, and African Diaspora histories. Such a background across multiple topics has ingrained in me a comparative and interdisciplinary approach that undergirded the flexibility of my interdisciplinary perspectives in the classroom, and the supervision and mentorship of undergraduate and graduate student research.
For my honors seminar on the African Diaspora, this background has come in very handy to take into consideration the interdisciplinary backgrounds of the students in this seminar to be versatile yet intent in harnessing the disciplinary rigor of history with the flexibility of interdisciplinary.
The seminar by its very design, covering wide geographical and chronological scope and examining the dispersal of Africans beyond their homeland during the slave trade, also offers a unique opportunity to expose students to the variety of methods and approaches that shape the study of African Diaspora as an interdisciplinary subject of study.
3. What are some of your tricks of the trade to engage students in the course materials?
As an Honors seminar, I designed the course to be intentionally interactive. Main activities include mini-lectures, a range of readings drawn from primary and secondary sources, use of the Slave Voyages database, documentary films, and a guest lecture, all designed to foster engagement and interactive discussion and analysis of the course’s key themes.
But in general, I would also describe my method, or “tricks,” if you will, in getting students to engage in the course materials as multi-dimensional. This approach starts with my weekly “mini-lectures,” which I find to be highly effective at conveying the context and generating enthusiasm about the course themes. And rather than just lecture, I attempt to interact with students’ life experiences by relating the course material to some aspect of their African diasporic experience or mine whenever possible. Although I carefully plan my lectures, I also exercise flexibility in response to students’ interests, questions, and needs.
I also make a point of acknowledging and explaining my own interpretive lens on the material and encourage students to develop their own. This openness helps foster a learning environment in which students feel comfortable expressing and defending their ideas, particularly during our weekly discussion groups sessions.
In addition to leading discussions, each student submits reading responses to two of the three assigned weekly readings. While discussion groups encourage brainstorming, debate, and critical analysis, the reading responses help prepare students in advance to engage meaningfully in the discussions and other course activities.
4. What’s the best thing about teaching Honors students?
Being part of the journey of Honors students who go the extra mile in pursuit of academic excellence has been deeply rewarding. In fact, this experience shapes how I view my role, not just as an instructor, but as a mentor committed to working with them to support their learning process. I also enjoy the rapport we build through classroom activities and interactions, office-hour conversations, and of course the whole process of seeing them make incremental progress on their individual research projects they will all share with the class in conference-style presentations.
