Fall 2023

Learning from historically marginalized voices through graphic novels

 The goal of this collaborative workshop is to better understand the lived experiences of our BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ students, colleagues, and community members through reading personal accounts told in graphic novels. Participants in this collaborative workshop will read four graphic novels/memoirs - one for each week of the workshop. 

The graphic novels will be: 

-The Best We Could Do by local author Thi Bui addresses generational trauma by providing an intimate look at the author’s family’s escape from war-torn Vietnam in the 1970s to the US and the challenges of years that followed. 

-Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, one of the most frequently challenged and banned books in libraries, charts the author’s journey of self-identity and coming out to family, friends, and society as nonbinary.

-The Talk by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Darrin Bell examines how “the talk” his mother had with him as a child about what it means to be a Black boy in America shaped private and public moments of his life, and how he is now deciding whether to have “the talk” with his own son. 

-Pulitzer Prize winning Welcome to the New World by Jake Halpern tells the story of a refugee family who flees from the war in Syria, arrives in the US on election day in 2016, and their struggle to make a life in the wake of Donald Trump, the Muslim ban, death threats, and the occasional kindness of strangers.

We will discuss the issues raised in the works and how these issues may affect our students and colleagues, especially as related to their experience at CSUEB and the educational and career goals they may have for themselves. A secondary purpose of the workshop is to think about how graphic novels/memoirs as a format could be used pedagogically.

Teachers of Writing (Across the Disciplines) Book Club

In this collaborative workshop, faculty members across disciplines will join a book club to read one of leading texts on writing pedagogy. We'll be reading "Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom" by John Bean. This dynamic text offers informative overviews of effective writing pedagogies and classroom scenarios that will empower writing instructors as they work to incorporate effective writing pedagogy into their coursework.

This collaborative learning community is designed to help faculty across diverse disciplines and in various stages of their process rethink their approach to writing–including those who are teaching writing intensive courses, faculty who are interested in thinking about their approaches to teaching writing, or those who want to design a writing intensive course. As East Bay launched its first ever semester where incoming students will be required to take writing intensive courses to graduate, this collaborative workshop seeks to support faculty teaching these courses for the first time or help establish a foundation of knowledge to create future writing-based courses and assignments grounded in methods researched and tested by John Bean.

The Book Club format is designed to be a low-stress collaborative environment where participants can come together to learn, ask questions, and reflect on their own teaching methods and includes a wide variety of potential participants. This text will help us imagine and engage with a culture of writing at East Bay that is inclusive of diverse student voices and helps students across disciplines learn to write and use writing as a learning tool.

Building Community through Drumming

This workshop will introduce faculty to accessible approaches to drumming and rhythmic movement, to be used for wellness practices, in-class exercises, and public presentations. We will train in basic techniques for playing lightweight, portable Taiko drums (Katsugi Oke Daiko). We will practice establishing connection to the Earth, centering, balancing, feeling steady rhythmic pulses, and returning to relaxed, embodied states in the midst of stress or distraction. And we will learn how to play a simple song while traveling around campus, with the portable Oke Daiko drums floating along with us.

Spring 2024

Writing Across the Curriculum: Infusing the Power of Writing in Your Courses 

Even in the age of ChatGPT, human writing is a powerful tool for learning and a powerful means of communication for academic, creative, civic, and personal purposes. In this collaborative workshop focused on the power of writing, participants will explore principles of writing across the curriculum (WAC) and its implications for pedagogy and impacts on student learning.

The hands-on portions of the workshop will engage participants in using an inclusive WAC lens to revise or develop an assignment and a syllabus for a writing intensive class in a major, GE/breadth, second composition or UWR (university writing requirement) course. An overview of the course proposal process and the use of Curriulog will also be provided.

Upon completion of the 4-week session participants will receive a $400 stipend.

Please note: Workshops will only run if there are a minimum of 6 participants. Due to budgetary constraints participation is limited to full-time or part-time Unit-3 employees on active payroll status, and not participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program, at time of payment. Additionally, those working in Extension/Continuing Education are not eligible for participation. 

Workshop Leaders: Sarah Nielsen and Michelle St. George;

email: sarah.nielsen@csueastbay.edu, michelle.stgeorge@csueastbay.edu 

Where: Via Zoom

When: Fridays, 1:30-2:30: 2/16, 2/23, 3/1, 3/8

Center for Disability Justice Research Book Club

Though most faculty understand that students with disabilities may receive accommodations, relatively few have had exposure to the principles of disability justice, an intersectional framework that goes far beyond accommodations. Disability justice calls on us to move towards collective liberation and envision a “…a world in which every body and mind is known as beautiful.” Spending time with this text, considering and discussing the experiences of BIPOC disabled people, gives faculty an entirely new perspective and lens through which to view disability, and therefore our campus community and students.

This groundbreaking memoir offers a glimpse into a local Bay Area activist's journey to finding, and cultivating, community and the continued fight for disability justice. The novel is composed of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more. This workshop will assign readings for each collaborative meeting, and discussion will focus on applying Alice Wong’s teachings to our own instruction and activism.

Upon completion of the 4-week session participants will receive a $400 stipend.

Please note: Workshops will only run if there are a minimum of 6 participants. Due to budgetary constraints participation is limited to full-time or part-time Unit-3 employees on active payroll status, and not participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program, at time of payment. Additionally, those working in Extension/Continuing Education are not eligible for participation. 

Workshop Leaders: Sara McDaniel and Sarah Taylor;

email: sara.mcdaniel@csueastbay.edu, sarah.taylor@csueastbay.edu

Where: Via Zoom

When: Fridays, 11am-12pm: 2/2, 2/9, 2/16, 2/23

Social Science Methodologies

A lot of the methodologies used by scholars of the social sciences carry with them certain assumptions about reality and human nature. Although the discourse about positivism and constructivism has been a long-standing debate, recent work has moved beyond this to explore the growing democratization of knowledge and the practical wisdom that comes from acknowledging the role of context.

In this collaborative workshop, we will look at trends apparent in recent work on participatory action, phronesis, critical realism, and more, and apply them to discuss the choices we make in our research.

Upon completion of the 4-week session participants will receive a $400 stipend.

Please note: Workshops will only run if there are a minimum of 6 participants. Due to budgetary constraints participation is limited to full-time or part-time Unit-3 employees on active payroll status, and not participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program, at time of payment. Additionally, those working in Extension/Continuing Education are not eligible for participation. 

Workshop Leader: Negin Toosi;

email: negin.toosi@csueastbay.edu

Where: In Person, room TBD

When: Fridays, 10am-11am: 3/1, 3/8, 3/15, 3/22

Growing food, growing community on campus!

For too long our Hayward campus has lacked a green space for students, faculty, or other campus community members to connect, grow healthy organic food, and learn about sustainable and just food systems. That's right, CSUEB has NO farm/food garden! As such, various programs that could use a garden for teaching and research – from STEM and environmental science to anthropology, art, and the humanities – suffer. Our students lack opportunities to connect with their own diverse food cultures and heritage. A garden could also help connect campus with other educators (such as teachers at Hayward Unified that teach garden curriculum). And of course, a garden could grow food – supporting especially those who face food insecurity.

This workshop will survey the status quo of garden efforts on campus, past and present. Then it will brainstorm and generate a concrete plan to make one happen. Join us!

Upon completion of the 4-week session participants will receive a $400 stipend.

Please note: Workshops will only run if there are a minimum of 6 participants. Due to budgetary constraints participation is limited to full-time or part-time Unit-3 employees on active payroll status, and not participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program, at time of payment. Additionally, those working in Extension/Continuing Education are not eligible for participation. 

Workshop Leader: Antonio Roman-Alcalá;

email: antonio.romanalcala@csueastbay.edu

Where: Via Zoom

When: Wednesdays, 10am-11am: 3/6, 3/13, 3/20, 3/27