{"id":21755,"date":"2015-05-11t09:07:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-11t14:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=21755"},"modified":"2015-05-12t09:47:28","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12t14:47:28","slug":"teaching-difference-and-power-symposium-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2015\/05\/teaching-difference-and-power-symposium-reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"from the director: teaching, difference, and power symposium in review"},"content":{"rendered":"

by derek bruff, cft director<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em>
\non april 21st, the 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 held a symposium as the final event in our \u201cteaching, difference, and power\u201d theme year.\u00a0 the cft selected this theme for 2014-15 as a way to explore the challenges all educators face in negotiating difference and power in their classrooms.\u00a0 when we selected the theme, over a year ago, we had no idea that the intersection of difference and power would become such a significant part of the national discourse this year, due to tragedies in ferguson and new york city and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

such events have highlighted the importance of helping our students\u2014and ourselves\u2014think more deeply and critically about difference and power.\u00a0 the symposium was an opportunity to learn how faculty, staff, and students across campus have been engaging in this challenging work, and to discuss steps we can take together to develop a more inclusive and equitable environment for teaching and learning.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

i was particularly struck by a statement made by our opening speaker,\u00a0rosevelt noble<\/strong>, senior lecturer in sociology.\u00a0 drawing on his \u201clost in the ivy\u201d research, which involves on dozens of in-depth interviews with black vanderbilt students and alumni, he noted that for black students at vanderbilt, the classroom is often last on their list of \u201csafe\u201d places where they can be themselves.<\/p>\n

at the symposium, we heard from several people trying to address this significant problem, including representatives of three vanderbilt student groups.\u00a0\u00a0akaninyene ruffin<\/strong>, president of hidden dores;\u00a0akailah jenkins<\/strong>, president of vanderbilt naacp; and\u00a0richard blissett<\/strong>, leader of crucial conversations, gave those in attendance a sense of the challenges of being students of color at vanderbilt, and also described their groups\u2019 intentional, constructive efforts to affect change on campus.<\/p>\n

we also heard from faculty who have built academic programs attentive to issues of difference and power.\u00a0 astronomy professor keivan stassun<\/strong> described the fisk-vanderbilt bridge program, which has become a pipeline for students of color to enter science and engineering faculty positions, and spanish professor\u00a0william luis<\/strong> detailed the development of vanderbilt\u2019s new latino and latina studies program, which has increased the attention to difference within the curriculum.<\/p>\n

and, thanks to a video produced by the cft\u2019s brielle harbin and rhett mcdaniel, we heard\u00a0insights from participants in learning communities on race and power<\/a> that the cft hosted this year.\u00a0 the faculty members and graduate students in these learning communities shared reflections on challenging classroom dynamics, including stereotype threat and microagressions, along with strategies they have adopted to foster more inclusive and critical classroom discussions.<\/p>\n

over the past year, the cft has developed a number of resources to help instructors understand and respond to issues of difference and power in their teaching.\u00a0 see, for instance, our new 2022年世界杯预选赛赛程表 on\u00a0increasing inclusivity in the classroom<\/a>,\u00a0teaching students with disabilities<\/a>, and\u00a0feminist pedagogy<\/a>. see also the series of videos on\u00a0inclusive teaching in the stem classroom<\/a> we produced for an open, online course on stem (science, technology, engineering, and math) teaching.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

the symposium concluded with an engaged set of small-group conversations, during which attendees shared their own experiences and perspectives and discussed steps they and others at vanderbilt might take to continue creating a diverse and democratic campus culture.\u00a0 a number of ideas were floated: making conversations about difference more public, examining our own biases and positions of power, hiring a chief diversity officer, increasing faculty diversity, providing better support for women faculty and faculty of color, enhancing attention to difference and power in the curriculum, adding questions about inclusivity to student course evaluations, providing training on inclusive teaching.<\/p>\n

the cft will continue its efforts on that last point, with workshop opportunities next year for faculty and graduate student instructors, as well as continuing conversations about difference and power in the classroom.\u00a0 we hope you\u2019ll join us.\u00a0 these are hard conversations to have, but they are important ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by derek bruff, cft director on april 21st, the 2022年世界杯中国小组赛积分 held a symposium as the final event in our \u201cteaching, difference, and power\u201d theme year.\u00a0 the cft selected this theme for 2014-15 as a way to explore the challenges all educators face in negotiating difference and power in their classrooms.\u00a0 when we selected…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":451,"featured_media":19959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[143,256],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-wp0\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/59\/2018\/07\/09154856\/diffpowfnl.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21755"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/451"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21755"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21828,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21755\/revisions\/21828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}