My college also got a grant to develop a training course for faculty on inclusive teaching. It's a 3-hour (credit) course, and as part of the grant, we are paying faculty to take it. We're basically starting with the basics and training people on racism in all its many forms, the history of it, how it affects students, inclusivity, intersectionality, microaggressions, having difficult conversations, and more.
We've found that you have to meet people where they are. Some people are far along and cognizant of a lot of the issues, and some have barely started. It's really the latter group we're hoping to attract by paying them to take the course. A lot of it is just educating people; some of the videos we use in the trainings are really powerful and can really open hearts to learn. I'm presenting on our work at AMATYC, and I'll have a list of the videos there.
In our math department, we've been collecting data on how we do disaggregated by racial/ethnic groups, and we're improving, but we still have a ways to go. We struggle the most with the lowest level courses, the developmental courses, math for the liberal arts, and statistics. There's less of an issue in calculus and up. Has anyone else seen these type of results?
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Johanna Debrecht
Mathematics Department Chair / Assistant Professor
Red Rocks CC / Northern VA CC
Lakewood CO
johanna.debrecht@rrcc.edu------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 06-17-2022 11:30:07
From: Helen Burn
Subject: IMPACT in Action - Racial Equity in Mathematics
At my college, we received a Title III grant to achieve racial equity. As part of this, I was invited to be on the design team for building tools to support faculty in achieving racial equity in their classrooms. What we know for sure is that faculty are at different spaces with respect to their knowledge base around racism and its effects. For example, we know that racism is often structural rather than individual acts of racism. At the same time, our students tell us that they experience microaggressions from faculty and staff at our college. Another complex idea is that racism has no biological basis yet "race" is real and a person's race affects their lived experience in powerful ways. We also know that our tendency in mathematics is to develop color-blind approaches to improving student outcomes. Yet "lift-all-ships" approaches may not do much to improve racial equity in our field.
What are your experiences with engaging your colleagues in discussions around racial equity? What approaches have been successful in either bringing people to the table or designing strategies or practices around racial equity in mathematics?
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[Helen] [Burn] [Ph.D.]
[Highline College]
[Des Moines] [WA]
[(206) 592-3496Phone]
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