Dear faculty,
Last year, the Office of Faculty Development committed to sponsoring and promoting programs and events that would support the implementation of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the classroom. This commitment was in line with the University’s strategic priorities and was supported by GI2025 student success funding that we were able to roll over from 2019-2020. Some of the best aspects of these efforts included the ability to create collaborations across divisions, the opportunity to challenge ourselves and our pedagogical practices, the possibility to extend these conversations across most disciplines and Colleges, and the chance to give voice to a number of faculty that truly are advocates and activists for the implementation of equity on campus.
Rebecca Nelson and I also participated in the third Middle Leadership Academy cohort last year, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that we learned a great deal of information and practices that we are committed to bringing to faculty development, including a number of resources about faculty’s role in this work.
This year we are excited to sponsor a second Teaching Racial & Social Justice (TRSJ) Series and I want to take this opportunity to invite you to our first workshop, Confronting the Traditional Learning Space: Anchoring Your course in an Antiracist, Inclusive, and Culturally Sustaining Framework, which will be held on Wednesday, October 13th from 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. in Zoom. This workshop will explore and unpack an evaluation tool that is grounded in the Anti-Racist Quality Learning and Teaching (AR-QLT) framework, developed by Dr. Daniel Soodjinda and used as a guide by a faculty learning community at CSU Stanislaus. The AR-QLT framework contains a set of 11 Antiracist, Inclusive, and Culturally Sustaining objectives, and faculty can use the AR-QLT instrument to assess their courses, learn where there are equity gaps, and take the steps necessary to meaningfully support their diverse classrooms.
Our next workshop, Throwing Out the Syllabus: Responding to Crisis in Real Time will be offered on October 27th from 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. in Zoom and will be led by Dr. Claudia Sofía Garriga-López.
We hope that you will join us for these important conversations.
