About

Statement on commitment to diversity

Land acknowledgement: Wayne State University rests on Waawiyaataanong, also referred to as Detroit, the ancestral and contemporary homeland of the Three Fires Confederacy. These sovereign lands were granted by the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot nations, in 1807, through the Treaty of Detroit. Wayne State University affirms Indigenous sovereignty and honors all tribes with a connection to Detroit. (Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Wayne State University)

As a white scholar and instructor working in Rhetoric and Writing Studies, I must acknowledge and actively work against the power structures within my classroom and profession, namely, that whiteness and White Mainstream English (Baker-Bell 2020) works to silence and disempower my students and colleagues. My return to Wayne State University for my doctoral program was in part influenced by my appreciation of WSU as one of the most diverse campuses in Michigan. Yet, I recognize that we must continue to work towards equity within our universities, as enrolling students with diverse identities does not equate to meeting their needs, cultivating a sense of belonging, or engaging and supporting their goals. Therefore, throughout graduate school, I have sought experiences to actualize this work. 

As a teacher-scholar, I have developed and incorporated diversity, equity, and inclusion into my work. First, I practice acknowledging my own positionality as well as developing space to welcome others’. In my own classes, I adapt labor-based grading (Inoue, 2019) as a revision process for writing projects and encourage students to integrate their unique linguistic practices into their identities as writers. Sheri Craig (2021) notes that grading contracts are the low-hanging fruit of attempts to incorporate antiracist pedagogy; with this in mind, I have diversified readings in general-education writing courses by including underrepresented authors. For example, my first-year composition students compare a selection from Inoue’s Above the Well, Anjali Pattanayak’s “There’s One Correct Way to Write and Speak” (Bad Ideas About Writing), and Christina Sánchez-Martín’s “Beyond Language Difference in Writing: Investigating Complex and Equitable Language Practices” (Writing Spages 4) through mapping the rhetorical situation and rhetorical appeals as practice to identify examples and analyze college-level texts. This activity provides students an opportunity to consider other perspectives that may contradict their own while offering potential limitations of their perspectives. 

In my future role as a professor, scholar, and mentor, I will continue this work as I recognize its importance to my own academic success and for others who may not feel like they fit within the university. As a first-generation college student, I am committed to supporting non-traditional students. I implement and continue to learn about accessibility in the university space, particularly through document accessibility and universal design for learning.