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April 27, 2004
No Bull Diversity Summit
Background
At the initiation of Brian Levenson, Vice President of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, we hosted a campus-wide brainstorming session on what teachers can do to make open, honest, respectful conversation across lines of difference possible and productive in (writing) classes on this campus. The purpose of the summit was for teachers to listen—really listen—to students.
About 120 people participated - the members of SAE, students from other organizations and from a range of political beliefs, a few staff members, and teachers from the Writing Program. The evening began with six manifestos - short statements by students about what they would like to see happen on campus, including one by the president of SAE. Then for about 45 minutes participants talked in small groups about what does and doesn't work in diversity conversations, about the teacher's role, about the students' role, and about the relationship of classrooms to other campus events. For the last hour there was a wide-ranging, sometimes difficult, always respectful large group discussion.
Group leaders and other teachers wrote up notes from the evening, which are included below. Teachers were impressed with the articulateness and commitment of the students who participated - and with the excellent, specific, passionate suggestions they heard.
All too often diversity events are attended by those who are already engaged in activist work and/or who share a certain political view. This event included a much wider range of students, including many who value a more inclusive campus but who haven't taken a public role before. To a degree, this resulted in a disruption of the stereotypes and the polarizing that often limit real diversity work.
As I was putting these notes together, I was also reading Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope by bell hooks (Routledge, 2003), and found overlaps between the notes and her essays. I decided to add some quotations from this book into the notes, as emphasis, as points of contrast, as hopeful claims. Those quotations are at the end of the document.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this event, especially Brian and the members of SAE.
Margaret Himley (May 21, 2004)
Posted by mryonker at April 27, 2004 02:56 PM