I’ve always loved sports and so does my spouse, so this weekend we’ve been treated to the NCAA & NFL’s ongoing campaign around their commitments to the messages of Martin Luther King, Jr., and…..you know.
That’s a funny thing for people who are attentive to power and to Dr. King’s writing that isn’t just about the content of one’s character (not to mention that it’ll be funny to anyone who knows the histories and practices of both organizations).
Because I came to feminism through the socialist feminists1, for example, I’m far more interested Dr. King’s writing about interrelated power, material, and race dynamics than interpretations about individual commitments to just treating everyone with the same level of respect.
That perspective makes me critical of organizational discourse and decision-making, too, on matters related to diversity, equity, justice, belonging, and inclusion, but I’ve been thinking about how individuals can enact some meaningful change in their own ecosystems in higher education. One of my foundational beliefs is that if we say that we want to be the change, then we need to make the actual changes.
I toss these ideas out pretty cavalierly but I do understand the bravery involved in confronting some of the realities and inherent contradictions of organizational life, especially in higher ed. Recently, someone approached me about how we might move some goals forward, and part of my response included this:
Your homework is to tell me how we move matters related to inclusion and belonging in an institution (higher education) whose very roots are, in fact, exclusionary.
It’s a trick question, really, and speaks to that which is at the heart of the tension between stated DEI goals and the reality of the work in higher ed: Un-bake this cake. Remove the flour. But still maintain a cake2. The problem is that the nature of the thing is the heart of the problem.
I’m reminded of Dr. Alexandria Lockett at Spelman who said, “Organizations cannot be radical. Individuals can be radical.” (Click for the link to her new book.)
But how might that look? Here are three things I think faculty members can do if they want to move organizations toward more equitable student outcomes.
Disaggregate data all the way down to individual sections.
Maybe the most threatening of all of the recommendations, I don’t know. People who haven’t interrogated Whiteness as property or examined how the concept materializes in education, the racial epistemes of their disciplines3, and the replication of invisible power hierarchies in higher education could find themselves in uncomfortable intellectual space, but here’s my rationale for making this suggestion:
First, I assume that organizations are already disaggregating their data on everything they measure. I also assume that people are operating in data spaces that acknowledge that “individual actions, especially by students, are not the whole story” in examining disparate outcomes. I assume that people understand how everyone is enabled and constrained in executing their decision-making across contexts (including faculty and especially within their labor context). I assume that people understand how our views of our potential fields of action are created and sustained and that those fields are not the same for everyone.
(If they’re not oriented to these matters, maybe a little education there first.)
Thus, if we want to see the pain points with depth and nuance, we’ll want to shine a light in the corners. But we can do that only in safe, brave spaces, where people can separate the outcomes from their own identities as “good people” who want to do the good work of creating a just society. I assume that everyone in my academic orbit wants to do that good work; it’s not even a question.
On the program or major level, it’s pretty simple: Examine your outcomes (learning outcomes, retention in the major or program, grades in the major or program, grad rates) to highlight any trouble spots. If (insert population here: low-income, racially minoritized, disabled) student outcomes are lower than the average outcomes, investigate.
Hire a good qualitative researcher from outside your organization who is sensitized to how power functions and how dynamics replicate in higher education to engage in interviews with your students. Participants should be not just the survivors, but those who dropped out, transferred, didn’t finish, whatever.
The program level is pretty easy, when we’re serious about it. We can even do that on the course level, should we so choose (I’m thinking about lots of intro-level courses here, especially in undergraduate general education).
The section-level can be a bit more challenging.
My approach here, as a faculty leader, would be to invite people into the conversation: Do you want to look at your outcomes on the section level? Let’s do it together, privately and honestly, and we’ll dig into some hypotheses. Some of those hypotheses will be about the very nature of this work and higher education as an institution, disciplinary epistemes, instructional philosophies, course policies, course content, pedagogy, and materials. Not one of those hypotheses will be about intentional disparate treatment.
(Not to say it’s an impossibility that someone is intentionally treating students differently to achieve disparate outcomes. I don’t start there, though.)
My approach as an individual faculty member would be to just pull the data, track the trends, and build hypotheses. I’d engage trusted colleagues/mentors from inside or outside the org for discussion.
I’m aware of at least one college in the Midwest whose faculty committed to this exercise in their quest for a more equitable organization. Are there others you’re aware of?
Engage students in the work.
I think this one is simple. Get some data: Regardless of the subject matter, assign a last-week reflection that asks, “If this course were designed just for you and your learning habits, styles, and preferences, how would it look? If this course were designed just for you, how would we measure your learning? If this course took your own experiences outside of this class, your personal history, and your habits of thinking and language into account in its design and content, how would it look?”
At the beginning of a class, we might ask students what other readings they’d bring into the course to round out a syllabus. We might engage them in an analysis of the course syllabus (I’ll write more about the value of these tactics with more specificity soon).
These data can be illuminating, especially when we consider what and who higher education and our disciplines implicitly and explicitly exclude and who sees themselves reflected in who we are and what we do in higher education.
This recommendation also means that on the org level we should not talk about students, but listen to them. Decision-making bodies should include student representation. I’m still surprised at the number of IHEs that don’t have student trustees on their boards.
3. Become skilled in culturally-relevant pedagogy, at a minimum.
Depending on the location of your education (both from a disciplinary and geographic perspective) and where you conduct your work, you might already be familiar (here’s a link from the state of CA). I hope this one speaks for itself. (Bonus recommendation: Take a studied approach to alternate assessment practices, weighing out the evidence in the context of learning.)
True Confession: I don’t love the idea of taking a micro-level approach to system-level problems, but as I continue to refine my thinking, I don’t see a way around it.
I don’t trust that people with positional power can work around some real and pervasive constraints to move the needle on equity outcomes in a meaningful way in a short period of time. I don’t trust that people with policy control (at any level) engage in an investigation of their blind spots or an interrogation of their taken-for-granted assumptions about the world in which they operate. I don’t believe in institutional bravery. And at this point, too many IHEs are operating in extremely difficult political spaces.
But I do believe in individuals, and I do believe that many, many individuals want to engage in meaningful, substantive practices that can influence broader equity outcomes. I do believe that we cannot afford to wait on organizations and institutions, and I do believe that the moment is now.
And I think we’ve lost some collective momentum in this conversation that individual contemplation and resulting action in our own spheres of influence can reignite, even as we stare down another complex, difficult semester ahead.
Christine1990s could never have imagined a day when TEEN VOGUE would include an article on SF, but here we are.
My community college colleagues might want to suggest that we’re different. Though our missions are different, we still replicate the hierarchies of the culture in which we live. We’re still a bureaucracy. We still suffer the challenges of higher education’s roots. And to paraphrase a great analogy, just working in a community college makes us equitable in our practices in the way that standing in a gym makes us fit. We, especially, should be motivated to do the actual work of justice in every corner and should have the outcomes that prove it.
Probably like you, I was informed that “our discipline has no racial or sexual epistemes.” I asked, “White is not a race and male is not a sex?” Christine1990s was so earnest and that question literally came out of innocence; it was one of the many moments that turned me toward a study of power.
This was an excellent article, Christine, and the focus on the individual doing the work makes sense. The individual can pivot more quickly in one's own sphere of influence than one who is waiting on organizational direction or "directives." This reading has provided me with a few takeaways I intend to implement this semester with my students. Thank you for the inspiration!