All faculty and staff are invited to participate in this year-long initiative. Our goal? To support ongoing campus-wide anti-racist initiatives at Washington and Lee by researching and creating a comprehensive and accessible data-base that looks at the best anti-racist practices at all levels and in all facets of higher education.

Working in cohorts, we will seek out resources that address essential anti-racist practices in curricula, course design, pedagogy, academic culture, social culture, institutional culture, individual mindset and positionality, technology, and any other topic that participants bring to the table. What are the best practices? Where are the innovations that raise the conversation to the next level? How do we make change sustainable and impactful? How do we curate these resources and make them accessible to all members of our community? How do we engage each other in powerful, positive conversations? What are the next steps, and the steps after that, and after that?

Participation will involve initial Learning Community-wide meetings, occasional cohort coordination, and on-going, at-your-own-pace, individual initiative. Faculty and staff from across campus, regardless of area of specialization, are encouraged to give this essential and rewarding opportunity serious consideration.

Interested? Please contact Paul Hanstedt at phanstedt@wlu.edu by no later than 2 November.

This learning community is co-sponsored by CARPE, the Office of Inclusion and Engagement, Africana Studies, and Academic Technologies.

Winter Academy

Registration open on Monday, October 26th at go.wlu.edu/winteracademy.

Tuesday, Nov 17, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
Small Contemplative Teaching for Focus, De-Stressing, and Building Community

We’re teaching college in some of the most demanding conditions most of us have ever seen. How can we reclaim scattered attention, or help ourselves and our students manage our stress, or nurture classroom relationships when there’s no classroom? This workshop offers an introduction to the field of contemplative pedagogy, an approach that combines contemplative and mindful practices with academic inquiry across all fields that offers ways to turn our problems into occasions for new possibilities. In the spirit of James Lang’s and Flower Darby’s Small Teaching books, this workshop will focus on simple, easily incorporated practices that you can start using right away, whether in chemistry or creative writing.

Presenter: Dr. Chris Phillips is Professor of English at Lafayette College, where he specializes in early American literature, book history, and spiritual writing. He is the author of The Hymnal: A Reading History (Johns Hopkins, 2018) and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American Renaissance (Cambridge, 2018). 

Tuesday, Nov 17, 2:15 PM – 3:45 PM
Imagining CBL Possibilities for Your Class

Want to try community-based learning (CBL) in your classes but don’t know how to begin? Join CARPE and CBL’s staff as they lead you through brainstorming exercises to imagine ways to enrich your course with CBL opportunities. Participants will leave this workshop with an overview of the basic elements of this pedagogy and knowledge of community partners, types of collaboration, resources for course development, and project examples. Meet faculty like you who are interested in exploring CBL and are interested and willing to think through a variety of options.

Co-Sponsored by Community Based Learning and the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning.

Wednesday, Nov 18, 2:15 PM – 3:45 PM
Anti-Racist Pedagogy

More info coming!

Dr. Chanelle Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Education and Director of Africana Studies, at Bryn Mawr College. With over ten years of experience, and a lifelong commitment to revolutionizing education for justice, Dr. Wilson supports self-introspection for outer transformation and guides with the steady underlying premise of love, joy, and hope.

This event is co-sponsored by Academic Technologies, Africana Studies, CARPE, and the Office of Inclusion and Engagement.

Thursday, Nov 19, 2:15 PM – 3:45 PM
Ungrading in a Pandemic … and the Rest of the Time, Too

In this workshop we discuss some of the research on motivation and learning and the reasons many educators have moved to ungrading—the WHY. Then we move to talk about the practical dimensions of moving toward ungrading, whether completely or partially—the HOW. Participants will workshop some revisions of their own assignments and course structures.

Susan D Blum is a professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, currently fixated on education and pedagogical praxis. She is the author of “I Love Learning; I Hate School”: An Anthropology of College (Cornell, 2016) and the editor of the forthcoming volume Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) (West Virginia University Press, 2002).