Bathroom. Restroom. Toilet. Lavatory. Powder room.

Whatever it’s called, Dr. Daniel Walther, a Wartburg College professor of history, has heard them all. Now, he’s using bathrooms to introduce his students to issues of diversity and teach them about their role as a world citizen.

“These students will never look at a bathroom the same way again,” Walther said about the course simply called Bathrooms. “I hope that transfers from the bathroom to other spaces and they start looking more at the world around them, how it is constructed and how it exemplifies the way we understand certain social and cultural issues.”

Students will tackle issues ranging from accessibility to equality in this country and others. Walther will use traditional texts and photos from his travels to help students learn to “read” a bathroom.

The class will then tour campus bathrooms to see how they do, and don’t, work. 

“What’s interesting about bathrooms is they are socially and culturally constructed spaces. Except on trains and planes, they already say men and women, male and female,” he said. “There are few differences in how we actually go to the bathroom. It’s not physiology. So why are bathrooms divided? And what do you do if you are transgender or transsexual?”

Students also will learn how people in other cultures use the restroom, including facilities, hygiene and the construction of the space.  

“The purpose of this course is to take a space that everyone uses but no one really talks about and to look at specifically how the space works and reinforces certain social and cultural norms,” Walther said.