Commitment to Social Justice Teaching

Colleagues at the Center for Teaching & Learning came together to reflect on how we - as individual contributors and a cohesive team - advance social justice. While this conversation was not our first time articulating the importance of practicing equity and inclusion, it follows a changing national political landscape, one that forces the university community to contend with polarization and uncertainty. In ordinary times, a moment to come together as a newly reorganized team of educational developers and instructional designers would serve as an opportunity for community building. Today, what emerges from team discussions on equity, inclusion, and justice is a renewed dedication and sense of urgency to act. Through dialogue and critical reflection, we identified three necessary conditions to move forward with a team-wide commitment affirming social justice:

  1. Our commitment to social justice must be shared by every CTL staff member. Social justice action and the advancement of social justice teaching cannot be accomplished by one person. We are all in this work together.

  2. This statement cannot be performative. By publishing this statement on our website, we are holding ourselves accountable to action, change, and growth.

  3. This statement must be a living document responsive to our ongoing social justice education and evolving practice. In many ways, this statement is a call to action for ourselves. As a majority White team with both privileged and oppressed identities, we recognize and affirm that being an equity-minded educator is a lifelong journey and commitment.

With these conditions in place, we offer a set of principles underpinning how we conceptualize social justice teaching and our commitment to social justice advocacy. We invite you to consider examples of how our services, programs, and initiatives serve as a starting point for this work. In future iterations, we intend to expand upon these principles with an assessment of our measurable impact toward advancing equity, inclusion, and justice in teaching and learning.

Teaching Principle 1

Effective teaching means standing in solidarity with students from historically marginalized and excluded communities.

  • Our commitment is to center the voices and experiences of instructors and students who academia often peripheralizes. 

  • We uphold this commitment by,

    • Facilitating confidential instructor and student focus groups to learn more about their lived experiences, challenges, and opportunities. 

    • Practicing active listening during consultations, particularly during peer observations of teaching and Mid-Semester Inquiry student focus group services, to be attentive to the needs, challenges, and barriers an instructor may be facing, without judgment.

    • Designing programs to bring together champions of community-centered, liberatory, and engaged pedagogy to cultivate a community of support and care for instructors, students, and staff who are often overlooked or overburdened in traditional academic spaces.

Teaching Principle 2

Equity-minded educators interrogate commonly held beliefs and assumptions to recognize, value, and honor individuality.

  • Our commitment is to raise awareness of the systemic biases and inequities instructors and students from historically marginalized and excluded communities encounter in the process of teaching and learning.

  • We uphold this commitment by,

    • Distributing evidence-based strategies to help instructors recognize, interrupt, and transform instructional choices that reproduce patterns of inequality and harm.

    • Providing structured and material support to assist instructors in conducting scholarship on their teaching practices and its impact on student learning.

    • Mentoring faculty in diverse methods for classroom research, including reflective - interpretive and student-partner approaches - which helps question “what counts” when it comes to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

    • Holding community space for Senate faculty and non-Senate faculty to interrogate, explore, and experiment with new possibilities in their teaching practice and philosophy.

    • Providing training and support for instructors on how to proactively meet accessibility requirements in their online courses and design online learning environments to enhance belonging and authenticity.

Teaching Principle 3

Social justice teaching demands an equity lens beyond the classroom, extending into all spaces of learning.

  • Our commitment is to challenge ourselves - individually and collectively - to develop a social justice analysis of the campus spaces we occupy and model equitable and inclusive practices in both the outcome and process of our work.

  • We uphold this commitment by,

Teaching Principle 4

Social justice teaching is a collaborative process between instructors, students, and other members of the campus community striving to advance an equitable and just learning environment.

  • Our commitment is to partner with like-minded campus educators and resource units to promote a culture of teaching and learning that honors and respects the humanity of all people, regardless of their ability, race, ethnicity, citizenship status, gender, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.

  • We uphold this commitment by,