A faculty learning community is a group of cross-disciplinary faculty (usually 6–12 people) engaging in an active, collaborative program that meets regularly to support each participant's professional development (definition adapted from Miami University, OH). Depending on the chosen book, learning community participants may pick a focus project and agree to apply the ideas, try out innovations, and report back to the group on what they have learned.
The Center for Faculty Development provides you with a copy of the book, refreshments, and a designated “host” for your learning community. At each gathering, you’ll discuss key insights from the assigned reading, questions that arise for you while reading, and, when appropriate, the progress you're making on your own project.
Any Seattle University faculty member, part-time or full-time, can participate in the program.
Teaching to Transgress
Mondays: Jan 24, Feb 7, and Feb 28 | 12:30–1:45 | Zoom link provided upon registration
Facilitated by Roxy Hornbeck (Performing Arts & Arts Leadership)
Co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion
Almost 20 years since its publication, Teaching to Transgress remains essential reading for educators seeking to reground their own practice in social and racial justice. In her book, hooks calls on educators to "transgress" against current educational practices that sustain racial, gender, and class inequities. Rather, she challenges us to reimagine a more liberatory practice of teaching, inviting us into a conversation about how to institute deep systemic change in our pedagogy, and reshaping our practices beyond the superficial. In her own words, "To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can learn." In this learning community, we will focus on the unique work that white faculty members need to do in their roles as leaders and teachers to promote more just and equitable spaces.
The author of Teaching to Transgress, Black feminist intellectual, professor, and activist, bell hooks, passed away on December 15, 2021 at the age of 69. This learning community honors her legacy and reminds us that the voices of Black Women who came before can be carried on in the work we do today.
In this three-session learning community for white-identified faculty, facilitated by Roxy Hornbeck (assistant professor of Arts Leadership), you'll read through the book with colleagues and explore how hooks's ideas and challenges can reshape your own work as an educator.
This community is for any white-identified faculty member who wants to move beyond self-awareness around racial identity to make concrete shifts in pedagogy and practice.
Fifteen spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Teaching to Transgress is 200 pages long and the reading will be split across the three sessions to be manageable for participants. It is available to SU faculty electronically via Lemieux Library. Alternatively, the Center is pleased to be able to offer hard copies of the book, to be delivered to a location of your choice.
The three dates in Winter Quarter are:
» Register
The Department Chair as Transformative Diversity Leader
Fridays: Apr 22, May 6, and May 27 | 11:00–12:15 | Zoom link provided upon registration
Co-sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI)
Facilitated by Katherine Raichle
Are you interested in seeking concrete tools and strategies for successfully implementing diversity in your department or program? Edna Chun and Alvin Evans’s The Department Chair as Transformative Diversity Leader: Building Inclusive Learning Environments in Higher Education provides practical, research-based approaches representative of best practices from across the United States to achieve this result.
In this three-session Learning Community, facilitated by Katherine Raichle (Center for Faculty Development), you'll work your way through the chapters of the book so that you are better prepared to lead other faculty in advancing diversity in multiple areas, including tenure and promotion, curricular change, student learning outcomes, departmental climate, and the representation of a diverse faculty and staff.
Over the three sessions, you'll learn how to:
This community is primarily for incoming or established department chairs and program directors, but other faculty members who are interested in promoting an inclusive learning environment would also benefit from this learning community.
The Department Chair as Transformative Diversity Leader is 181 pages long, and reading will be split across the three sessions to be manageable for participants.
The three dates in Spring Quarter are:
» Register