Advancing Disability Justice
FIR: Shubha Kashinath
In the United States, about 1 in 4 people live with a disability. In the latest campus climate survey about 14% of students on our campus identified as having a disability. Traditionally the disability rights movement has championed the rights of individuals who have experienced inequity, discrimination, and exclusion due to their disability. The pandemic has further highlighted how a greater understanding of the principles of disability justice such as universal design, flexible instruction and workplace accommodations are critical to building a more equitable and inclusive post-pandemic future.
Purpose of the FLC
Challenge ableist practices and advocate for equity with students with disabilities
Create opportunities for faculty to understand and apply universal design principles and other strategies to promote accessibility in classrooms
Discuss strategies to build interdisciplinary inclusive learning experiences for students
Encourage critical reflection and action around disability justice on campus
Potential Goals
Increase awareness about disability justice on campus
Develop resources/materials to assist faculty/lecturers in creating equitable learning environments that meet the needs of all students
Lead and/or contribute to initiatives that build campus capacity in moving towards a culture of inclusion and access for all.
Gathering Dates:
We will meet on the following 10 dates from 10 am-12 pm which will culminate in the the end-of-year Faculty Learning Community Symposium on May 6, 2022. As a group, we will determine if we will gather in-person, virtually, or a hybrid of both.
November 5, 2021
December 3, 2021
January 28, 2022
February 11, 2022
February 25, 2022
March 11, 2022
March 25, 2022
April 8, 2022
April 22, 2022
May 6, 2022 (Final FLC Symposium from Noon-2 pm)
To apply: Please fill out the following application: https://forms.gle/PrmTHntbQNEKCPUB6
Kindly apply by Friday, October 22nd, 2021.
Anti-racist, Decolonial, and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
FIR. G. Reyes
This Faculty Learning Community will examine the nuanced mechanics of how racism and colonialism operates within the field of education as a way to explore critical pedagogies that are anti-racist, decolonial, and culturally sustaining.
Purposes
To cultivate a critical and humanizing learning community that collectively works to sharpen its analyses on how racism and colonialism has systemically impacted our own identity construction, the construction of teacher & student identities, teaching & learning, and the institution of education.
To nurture our intellectual curiosities towards increasing our critical literacies within lineages of critical race (Crenshaw et al., 1995), decolonial (Maldonado-Torres, 2016), and culturally relevant (Ladson-Billings, 1995) discourses.
To nurture our individual and collective transformative sensibilities and stance in order to radically rethink how the intimacies of our classroom contexts could exist through applying anti-racist, decolonial, and culturally sustaining (Paris & Alim, 2017) practices.
To radically (re)imagine how our sustained work could contribute to transforming our university in liberatory ways.
Potential Goals
Collaboratively develop collective goals based on the purposes above.
Develop individual learning goals based on the purposes above.
Collectively develop a longer term trajectory of how anti-racist, decolonial, and culturally sustaining pedagogies are part of sustainable cultural and structural change in our university.
FLC Structure
This FLC will be structured in a humanizing way that:
Cultivates and nurtures the communal, intellectual, pedagogical, and sociopolitical aspects of the whole group,
Differentiates the more specific needs of the group based on individuals’ experience and knowledge level of critical race (Crenshaw et al., 1995), decolonial (Maldonado-Torres, 2016), and culturally relevant/sustaining (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris & Alim, 2017) discourses, and
Differentiates the more specific needs of the group based on individuals’ preparedness toward cultural, structural, and/or pedagogical transformation within CSUEB.
Gathering Dates
The following 10 gatherings will meet on a Friday from 9:30am - 11:30am and will culminate at the end-of-year Faculty Learning Community Symposium on May 6, 2022, noon - 2:00 pm. As a group, we will determine if we will gather in-person, virtually, or a hybrid of both.
Nov 19, 2021
Dec 3, 2021
Jan 28, 2021
Feb 11, 2021
Feb 25, 2021
Mar 11, 2021
Mar 25, 2021
Apr 15, 2021
Apr 29, 2021
May 6, 2021
To apply: Please fill out the following application: https://forms.gle/PrmTHntbQNEKCPUB6
Kindly apply by Friday, October 22nd, 2021.
Works Referenced
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G. & Thomas, K. (Eds.)(1995) Critical Race Theory: The key writings that formed the movement. The New Press.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American educational research journal, 32(3), 465-491.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2016). Outline of ten theses on coloniality and decoloniality. Fondation Franz Fanon.
Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.