Resources

From the Publisher This book gives voice to the experiences of women of color - women of African, Native American, Latina, East Indian, Korean and Japanese descent - as students in pursuing terminal degrees and as faculty members navigating the Academy, grappling with the dilemmas encountered by others and themselves as they exist at the intersections of their work and identities. Women of color are frequently relegated - on account both of race and womanhood - into monolithic categories that perpetuate oppression, subdue and suppress conflict, and silence voices. This book uses critical race feminism (CRF) to place women of color in the center, rather than the margins, of the discussion, theorizing, research and praxis of their lives as they co-exist in the dominant culture. This book makes salient three characteristics of critical race feminism. Just as it is places emphasis on the application of theory to real life issues, the authors' narratives address concerns about the academic community, home, and family. Just as CRF supports a discourse of resistance, the book provides a forum for different voices as multi-representations of the counterstories against the acceptance of the dominant culture and the status quo. And, finally, the contributors' stories reflect CRF's emphasis on narrative to deepen the understanding of their lives as women of color. The first part of the book addresses the issues faced on the way to achieving a terminal degree: the struggles encountered and the lessons learned along the way. Part Two, Pride and Prejudice Finding Your Place After the Degree, describes the complexity of lives of women with multiple identities as scholars with family, friends,and lives at home and at work. The book concludes with the voices of senior faculty sharing their journeys and their paths to growth as scholars and individuals. This book is for all women of color growing up in the academy, learning to stand on their own, taking first steps, mastering the language, walking, running, falling and getting up to run again, and illuminates the process of self-definition that is essential to their growth as scholars and individuals.

Building Bridges for Women of Color in Higher Education is designed to create a forum for synthesizing collective voices from women of color in academia. This book will serve as a professional development tool for academicians, both embarking upon and maintaining careers in higher education. (From the Publisher)

The authors discuss recent empirical evidence, gathered on behalf of the University of Michigan Supreme Court defense, demonstrating the educational benefits of diverse learning environments. These are environments that must be intentionally planned and nurtured, where diversity is conceived of as a process toward better learning and not merely an outcome that one can check off a list. Included are numerous suggestions for how to engage diversity in the service of learning, ranging from recruiting a compositionally diverse student body, faculty, and staff to transforming curriculum, co-curriculum, and pedagogy to reflect and support goals for inclusion and excellence. (From the Publisher)

Teaching Inclusively brings together a broad array of current "best practices" in the design, implementation, and assessment of multicultural change initiatives on college and university campuses. Readers will find that this volume advocates for more transparent connections between change initiatives at individual, departmental, and college-wide levels by highlighting the ways in which such practices and change goals can relate to and support each other, thus addressing a noticeable absence in the current available literature. The contributors to this volume present readers with a balance between theoretical models and demonstration projects that address change processes at three levels: individual courses, programs and departments, and across schools and institutions. In addition, there are descriptions of current, multi-year or multi-phase efforts at both departmental and organizational levels. Whenever possible, the contributors include their perspectives on important lessons learned from their efforts. Finally, we offer resource materials that promise concrete support for applications. Part I addresses models and perspectives that help to conceptualize, implement and assess diversity-related instructional and faculty development programs at the systemic level. Contributors offer models and descriptions of practices aimed at making transparent the values, beliefs, and goals that shape institutional and classroom climates. Note that in the context of this volume, "diversity" is deliberately defined broadly to encourage a more systemic approach to the analyses of and response to diversity-related issues. For many readers, this may offer new dimensions and greater texture to their current conceptualization of diversity. This section reflects the contributors’ interests in analytical tools and organizational frameworks useful in addressing individual, departmental, and institutional changes. Whenever appropriate, authors in this section identify a range of practical applications, such as course-based efforts in the major to courses that fulfill general education requirements. In Part II, contributors describe change initiatives that use departments (or programs) as the unit of analysis for diversity-related change efforts. In this section, readers will benefit from the descriptions and assessments of programs designed specifically to bring faculty and academic administrators together in cohorts to address diversity and teaching development goals within the disciplines in a sustained dialogue on diversity. Assessment of current efforts indicate that such initiatives illuminate the content, skills, and values necessary for sustained change and that such experiences can become important models for broader institutional change efforts. In Part III, the contributors discuss multicultural change efforts at the college or institutional level directed at creating and sustaining more inclusive teaching and learning communities. Additionally, contributors describe programs and practices useful in addressing diversity issues across the disciplines as well as within discipline-specific contexts. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding how can systematic multicultural organization change initiatives can support a departmental or campus-wide emphasis on teaching inclusively. These chapters offer rich descriptions of efforts at institutions learning how to address diversity-related initiatives in a sustainable, comprehensive manner. Such efforts can help others determine how best to assess their organization’s needs and strengths, and to determine what is needed in the larger environment to initiate and sustain successful pro-equity organizational change and innovations. Finally, Part IV pays particular attention to resources and program models particularly useful for faculty developers and centers. Contributors to this section provide a rich set of tools for self and course assessment, planning for new or revised programs, and suggesting well-proven strategies for approaches to diversity-related teaching development and organizational change initiatives. These include descriptions of specific, "hands on" consultation practices, workshop exercises, resource materials, and design elements (e.g., use of writing prompts) proven effective across the disciplines in engaging faculty in reflection, analysis, dialogue and innovation related to diversity-related teaching development goals. (From the Publisher)