By: Jeff Bernstein

Eighteen years ago, during my fellowship with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, I joined a group of teachers-scholars in discussing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects we would do during our fellowship year.  After each person presented, Pat Hutchings, Vice President of the Foundation, and a giant in the SoTL world, asked each of us “How will you involve students in this work?” Pat’s question made us consider how much more valuable our work would be if we had student collaborators whose input we took seriously. Inspired by her, my project incorporated students as discussion leaders in an American government class, which ultimately led to a co-authored (with the students) conference presentation and book chapter based on that experience.

About ten years later I was teaching my writing-intensive Public Opinion and Political Learning class. Class had been going very well for about the first eight or nine weeks, until we hit a wall. I seemed unable to do anything to generate the engaged class discussion to which I had become accustomed over the first two thirds of the course. I spent a lot of time thinking about what had gone wrong but just couldn't figure it out. One day, with about ten minutes to go in class, I asked my students, “We were doing really well. What happened? What can we do?”  Engaged, thoughtful, discussion ensued. Many ideas were not feasible, and some were pedagogically unsound. But some were truly thought-provoking, leading me to consider ideas I never would have found on my own. 

I hold these two experiences close to my heart as a professor at EMU, and for the last two-and-a-half years as Director of its Faculty Development Center. The desire to bring students into the conversation can be seen in our Teaching and Learning Together (TaLT) initiative, which strives to connect faculty and students. This year, TaLT features learning communities focused on student-faculty partnerships in clinical education, and on bringing pairs of students and faculty together to redesign courses together in our Collaborative Course (Re)Design learning community. Each begins from the core belief that students have much to add to these conversations. 

With this backdrop in place, I write this blog entry on a massive high following our first Flipping the Script student-led teaching conference. Held last Friday, this conference had close to 100 participants and sixteen different presentations by students as well as two plenary sessions organized and led by our students.  (You can see the program here.)  The sessions I attended were uniformly engaging, and thought-provoking. I learned something, or reconsidered some previous assumptions, in every single session I attended.  Going forward, I will be a smarter FDC Director, and political science professor, because of what our students taught me.

I will highlight just one memory, which I hope will stay with me for the rest of my life.  Our opening session, planned and led by FDC Student Worker extraordinaire Liv Overbee, featured Liv and four students (Jack Booth, Savannah Covault, Tra’chelle Lewis, and FDC student worker Trinity Perkins) who explored the multiple intersecting identities of our students.  Each student introduced themselves with the “standard information” – year in school, major – but then added other aspects of their identities that affect who they are, and how they show up, as students.  Following their introductions, the students went into the audience to talk with the faculty, staff, and fellow students at their tables.  

I found myself standing to the side for part of this, watching these students speaking with the conference attendees, who engaged in the conversation with rapt attention.  A sense of learning, of engagement, and of dialogue was palpable in the room; in that moment, we were all learning from each other.  Our vision for Flipping the Script was playing out right before my eyes.

Throughout the conference, when I was speaking to our presenters and their faculty mentors, I expressed the hope that the conference would be the beginning of a conversation and not the end. At the FDC, we will continue, in the weeks, months and years ahead, to pursue the spirit of collaboration and partnership which we saw last week. Stay tuned to learn more about our future programming in this area.  My head is swimming in ideas. 

Conferences like Flipping the Script require support from across the University and beyond. We are grateful for the support we have received from Provost Rhonda Longworth, from Chao Sun and GameAbove, and from Kirk Profit, who enthusiastically funded so much of what we did last week. I'm grateful to all the deans, department heads, faculty members, lecturers, and staff who supported this idea, mentored students, attended panels, and did all the little things that make a day like last Friday possible.

My greatest gratitude, however, goes to the students. To those of you who presented at our conference, or just attended, thank you for putting yourselves out there. Thank you for buying into this vision that a group of faculty members really do care what you have to say about teaching and learning. And thank you for providing such exceptional presentations to validate the faith we placed in you!  

Finally, I want to thank the staff at the Faculty Development Center – graduate assistant Alivia English, and student workers Trinity Perkins, Rylin Reynolds, and especially Liv Overbee, for all the work you did to make this happen.  For the FDC, Flipping the Script was our finest hour, none of which happens without the support of the students with whom I have the honor of working.  This really was a student-led teaching conference!  

Looking ahead, I invite you to join us in seeking ways to make teaching a communal enterprise. When we do that, we enable Eastern Michigan University to build on its strengths and achieve its potential.  Stay tuned for more.  

Have a safe, peaceful, and restorative winter break!