Promoting Equity-Minded Institutional Change
Overview:
Though it feels isolating, if you have ever felt disempowered when helping students navigate systemic problems (e.g., poverty, discrimination) that impede their learning, you are not alone. Next year’s Teaching and Learning Community of Practice (CoP) will provide support and a sense of collective empowerment for those who engage or wish to engage in promoting equity-minded institutional change. Those who join will come together to discuss research on equity-minded teaching, curricular development, and institutional policy, and we will also consistently reflect on how larger systems of power and oppression impact the experience of higher education (Costino, 2018). During the spring, the community will engage in individual or collective project-based work to progress towards goals we establish at the end of the fall semester. This may involve subtle or significant transformation to approaches to teaching & learning in a singular course, broader curricular development, and/or supporting policy recommendations to the wider campus community.
General expectations for the CoP:
- Participate in and support a community of practice that would meet six times during the 2019-20 academic year. We intend to schedule these three meetings a semester on Friday mornings: 10/4, 11/1, 11/29, (1/23 – IDI), 2/7, 3/6, and 4/17.
- Attend the Instructional Development Institute on January 23rd, 2020.
- Engage in discussions of a series of readings related to equity-minded institutional change.
- Help articulate shared goals and outcomes for the learning community.
- Engage in project-work in Spring 2020 that works towards our collective goals.
- Share three reflections a semester on Canvas.
- Share your work with the university community during a fall 2020 event.
Please don’t let a conflict with a particular date prevent you from applying. We can work together to find a solution.
Support for project work
In addition to the emotional and intellectual support that a learning community provides, community fellows will receive reading materials and $275 S&E that they may spend on professional development such as books, course materials, or travel to a teaching/higher ed-related conference such as the UW System’s OPID Teaching and Learning Conference in April 2020.
Eligibility
Any instructors teaching in the fall and spring of 2019-20 may apply.
How to apply
Please send your application via e-mail to the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (catl@uwgb.edu) anytime before August 23rd. Our short application only includes:
- A brief letter of interest that discusses how you wish to explore the theme of “equity-minded institutional change” within the Teaching and Learning Community. If you already have a potential project in mind, please feel free to articulate this in your letter.
- A brief e-mail memo of support from your unit chair (one sentence is fine).
