My goal in teaching is to link students to the world around them. I view teaching as an opportunity to connect students to the political and social context surrounding them. I strive make the world accessible to students by drawing extensively from current events to apply theoretical concepts. I also focus students' attention on their role as citizens in local, national and global communities. In building contextual references with students, I encourage tolerance in and constant reevaluation of their worldviews. Rather than create experts in a narrow subject area, my teaching philosophy calls for making connections between past and present, between other countries and our own, and between people of different experiences. Building well-rounded worldviews also calls for teaching students how to express their ideas effectively. Learning to communicate ideas and argue persuasively are skills that cut across curriculum in my courses. I believe that independent research papers are not enough to develop good writing skills among all students; therefore I design a variety of assignments, incorporating fiction, peer workshopping and small group work, and research into current events and debates, to facilitate diverse learning and effective writing skills among students.

Introduction to Comparative Politics. Summer 1999, Duke University.

This course promotes comparison between different kinds of political development across and within regions of the world. Western Europe provides a comparative template for how parliamentary systems work and the relationship between politics and policy in advanced industrialized democracies. Latin America and East Europe present different experiences with the transition from authoritarianism and the challenges of democratization. Political systems of Asia and Africa incorporate diverse cultural and economic conditions that have lead to the adaptation of western political institutions. Students must compare the political development of different regions and address the problems of political organization and representation in each.

Workshop in Rhetoric: Wealth, Work and Class. Fall 1998, Duke University.

The tools of rhetoric are explored and applied in developing persuasive arguments. Substantively, the course focuses on influential debates over wealth, work and class from nineteenth and early twentieth century America. Student essays examine articles, like Carnegie's Wealth and Lloyd's Wealth Against Commonwealth, as persuasive arguments, as writings in historical and social context, and as components of current debates and perspectives. Students write essays weekly on issues of class and equity, employing different rhetorical styles to develop their own arguments.

The Problem of Collective Action. Summer 1996, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.

The collective action problem is analyzed through the evolution of property rights. We evaluate privatization as a solution to the tragedy of the commons, and compare it to common property resource regimes. The class compares a wide variety of resource cases of resource and property management, highlighting the role of selective incentives and small group interaction in overcoming collective action problems.

Democratization in Eastern Europe. Spring 1996, Duke University.

Democracy is a process in Eastern and Central Europe - one that is rooted in the particular past of the region. In this class, I examine the structures and institutions of the Soviet bloc, but focus most on the experience of every-day people living in a communist society using fictional and biographical accounts. This background provides essential context for the timing and style of political, social and economic transition in the region. The course further studies the current problems of transition, including building competitive parties, solving economic restructuring problems, and balancing minority rights and other issues of open, democratic societies. The dilemmas of simultaneous economic and democratic transition form the foundation for exploring the region's variance in transition outcomes.

West European Politics, Fall 1995, Duke University

This course surveys political institutions in Western Europe using individual cases and general trends. As discussion leader, I focus the class on comparisons between European institutions and the more familiar political process of the US. Discussions reflect my own interest in the diversity of democracy across countries, and how politics influence outcomes.

Introduction to International Relations, 5 Semesters between 1993-1997, Duke University

When students join an international relations class, they typically have limited perspectives on how the international system and domestic politics interact. My objective as discussion leader is to provide students with enough context to read the New York Times, and to understand how events in the world affect American political decisions and the lives of average citizens. I view this course as a means of making the world tangible to students. International Relations re-orients students’ worldview from local experiences to the interdependent international community.

The following student evaluations and comments come from classes directed as a teaching assistant. Graduate students revised the evaluation forms after 1994 to facilitate student comments and to provide more instructor-focused assessments.

Diana is a great asset to the political science department. No matter what the topic was, she always made it fun and interesting.

Thanks so much! My first big college lecture class was intimidating, but your presence and willingness to answer my questions, even the dumb ones, helped a lot. And it means a lot to know that someone cares about whether or not we understand! You’re wonderful and I’m glad I was in your section.

Diana Morlang was superb. She is extremely knowledgeable and a very good speaker. She helped me organize the information and highlighted the high points.

Diana, was without a doubt, the best TA both academically and personally, of the 5 TAs I have had at Duke so far. She made recitation fun to be in and I am glad I had her as my TA this semester.

My TA did an excellent job at maintaining section dynamics. She kept things moving but always wanted to hear what we had to say on a given issue. She was very accessible and helpful.

Our TA did a wonderful job of explaining lecture concepts and always had plenty of current application to use as examples.