Tag: student success

Servingness is Your Job, Too!

adminLeave a comment

Sent on behalf of Teresita Curiel, Director of Latinx Equity and Success, and Dr. Gloria Lopez, Assistant Professor in History

What is the difference between being at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and serving at an HSI? As educators, we constantly work to recognize our students’ needs and seek ways to empower them to be active agents in society.   

Generally, an HSI is defined as an institution of higher education with an undergraduate full-time equivalent enrollment of at least 25 percent self-identifying Hispanic students. Chico State first met this enrollment threshold in the Fall of 2014. As part of an HSI, when was the last time you asked yourself how I am serving my Latine/x students today?

Dr. Gina Ann Garcia, a leading scholar on and advocate of HSIs, tells us that servingness is a journey, not a destination. Earlier this month, Dr. Garcia challenged her ¿Qué Pasa, HSIs? Blog readers to remember that “Servingness is your job, too!” How might we, as instructors at HSIs with a growing percentage of Latine/x and first-generation students, find ways to center their experiences and encourage them to take ownership of their own learning experiences?

With the semester quickly winding down, take a pause and consider this line from Dr. Garcia, “Faculty at HSIs must adopt a new curriculum that centers the predominantly Latine/x identified students on campus, but also considers Black, AANHPI, and Indigenous students.”

For now, we encourage you to explore these resources: 

  • Dr. Gina Garcia’s Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity & Justice (2023) is available as an e-book through Meriam Library.
  • Engage with her work via the ¿Qué Pasa, HSIs? podcast and blog.

For next semester, we encourage you to consider two opportunities:

  • Advancing Latinx Servingness Faculty Learning Community (FLC)
    The Office of Faculty Development, in collaboration with Latinx Equity and Success, and with funding from a grant won by Ryan Patten and a team from BSS, will facilitate an FLC in Fall 2024, featuring connected workshops focused on better understanding Latinx university students and how Chico State can advance their success. All faculty are welcomed to apply.
  • 2024-2025 Book in Common 
    Consider adopting next year’s Book in Common (BIC), Héctor Tobar’s Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino. This book is an opportunity to amplify the voices of Latine/x students and what it means to be an HSI in and outside of the classroom. You can read Ashley Gebb’s March 21st feature on Chico State Today for more information about the selection.  Also, faculty can indicate interest in adopting all or part of the book or being part of the Book in Common planning team by completing the FA24 Book in Common form.

Zach Justus
Director of Faculty Development
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Google Voice/Text: 530-487-4150

Where Are Your Students?

adminLeave a comment

It is that time of year. Today is Halloween. Veteran’s Day and Fall Break are around the corner and students are disappearing. Some of them are sick, others are traveling for school or fun, and others may be homesick. Gazing out into a half-full classroom usually fills me with anxiety on a few levels. I’m wondering how the class is going to go, and I’m also dreading the deluge of emails about making up missed work and class time. 

One remedy to this annual tradition is to consider an alternative format for your classes. Hyflex classes, where a variety of modalities might be implemented, allow students to have more flexible learning experiences. In a recent episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast thought leader David Rhoads and Bonni Stachowiak made the point that flexible teaching front-loads instructional work and often saves you as the instructor time in the long run because you deal with far fewer edge-cases where students are not in class. 

You might have tried this during the pandemic and had a terrible experience, or maybe you tried it and loved it, but it seemed like the momentum on campus was back towards traditional face-to-face teaching. Regardless, we have the tools, experience, and now the research on what works and what does not. Join us for a workshop on Wednesday to explore the ChicoFlex modality and why it might be a good fit for you moving forward. 

Why you should attend this workshop and consider ChicoFlex:

  • Expand enrollment in your program by offering flexible arrangements. 
  • Utilize technology that is already available and in rooms all over campus. No need to write a grant to get what you need. 
  • Lower your workload by preemptively building flexibility for students who are sick or traveling. 
  • Research from our campus and around the country indicates flex arrangements maintain or even expand student success.

November 1, 12-1 p.m.
MLIB 045 or Zoom
Led by: Katie Mercurio, Tina Lewis, Kathy Fernandes, and Zach Justus

Professor leading a classroom of students with a chalkboard and computer resources

Figure 1: Professor leading a classroom of students with a chalkboard and computer resources

Zach Justus
Interim Director of Faculty Development
Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences
Google Voice/Text: 530-487-4150

Stereotypes Can Threaten Student Success

adminLeave a comment

“Millennials are lazy”

“Black men do poorly in college”

“Blondes are ditzy”

“White men can’t jump”

What other stereotypes have you heard (or said) in class? Perpetuating stereotypes can lead to a widely studied phenomenon called “Stereotype Threat.” This occurs when a person feels at risk of being perceived as confirming a negative stereotype about a “group” they belong to. In a classroom, the anxiety of substantiating a negative stereotype has been shown to lower test performance, reduce memory capacity, decrease focus, and cause students to resist learning activities.

To minimize Stereotype Threat, you can…

  • Be aware of your own biases for or against groups of people
  • Avoid language that perpetuates negative stereotypes
  • Most Importantly, teach with a belief that ALL students can learn and be successful in your class regardless of stereotypes about them

New Colleagues and Old Problems

adminLeave a comment

This time of year can be challenging for all of us—but especially for new faculty. The balance of scholarship, teaching, service, and life outside campus can be difficult to maintain even if you have been at it for a long time, but take a minute to recall the time when it was all new. In Faculty Development we have a formal mentoring program run by Susan Wiesinger that provides assigned mentors for new tenure-track faculty and a specialized workshop series for lecturer faculty. However, we acknowledge that the most important mentoring work is almost always informal and local. I want to highlight a few realities of these relationships that I hope you will keep in mind as this semester closes and we look toward Fall 2017.

  • Lecturer faculty need mentoring too. Lecturers have a dramatic impact on student success as they are often the people called on to teach first-year students and serve in other critical roles. Prioritizing student success means equipping lecturers with research, resources, and drawing on their expertise. It also means engaging them in conversation on effective teaching, research opportunities, and helping them navigate the university. This is a job for all us, regardless of classification. Talk to new lecturer colleagues about professional development like the CELT conference and how to access resources for travel.
  • Minority faculty face unique challenges, but you do not have to share the same life experience to be helpful. A recent Chronicle article highlighted key strategies for mentoring new minority scholars. I encourage you to read the whole article, but I want to highlight the first piece of advice “Practice cultural humility” and in doing so “demonstrate empathy for the professor’s experience as a faculty member of color in the institution.” In institutions like ours with strong organization culture we are often too quick to bring newcomers up to speed with “how things are done here” without being attentive to other strategies or experiences. Mentoring is mainly learning and listening.
  • Make a plan and get out there. Writing “be a good mentor” on a post-it note may be a reminder for you, but it is not a plan. Talk with your colleagues and your department/college leadership about what is being done and what is possible, but get started. Make a point to drop by a new colleagues office to ask how things are going, make a trip to a different floor or building to talk to a new lecturer that you have not met, but take the first step in outreaching to your new colleagues.

I am advising this now in hopes of helping our colleagues at the end of the term, but also to compel you to think about how next year could be even better with new faces, new ideas, and new mentoring relationships.

The call for the 23rd annual CELT conference is live! Submit an abstract today to change the world tomorrow—or maybe in October.

Got feedback on this tip? Got an idea for a tip? Send it along. Check out our new and improved wordpress site here.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Caffeinated Cats podcast! Our newest episode is out now! Mary, Tracy, and I are joined by student guest Martin Morales to discuss housing and food insecurity at CSU, Chico. Link to it on soundcloud, itunes, overcast, or follow the podcast on facebook.