The Institute for Inclusive Excellence, the Inclusive Excellence Committee, and the HHMI Inclusive Excellence Team, invite your participation in the DEI Individual Reflection Project, led by Jane Liu and Dylan Worcester. A goal of this work is to create a more inclusive climate on Pomona’s campus.
One of the ways we hope to catalyze this change is to encourage faculty to reflect on the inclusive practices that they use in their teaching at the College (both inside and outside of the classroom). We see this act of reflection as a professional development opportunity for faculty to think about their DEI practices, and ultimately, how instruction, curricular content, classroom discussions, research, and creation help the College achieve a more inclusive community. We aspire for these reflections to help instructors better engage in broader conversations about the College’s commitments to DEI.
The specific aims of the DEI Individual Reflection Project are:
- Compile a range of examples to identify the varied ways individuals define or understand DEI in their teaching.
- Provide an exercise by which instructors can develop a useful set of reflections to show growth over time. The individual reflections would be helpful for instructors as they prepare PARs, tenure and promotion dossiers, grant proposals, etc.
Exercise prompt: We would like to invite all instructors to reflect (1-3 pages) on how they foster inclusive learning spaces and to write their own DEI Individual Reflection which speaks to their process, both in and out of the classroom, and any perceived or measured impact they have observed. If you wrote a reflection in 2021, you might consider focusing on how your answer to the prompt has evolved over the past two years. The following questions may help you address the prompt. Feel free to use one, or several, of these questions in responding to the above prompt.
- We propose that the process of engaging in DEI practices is cyclical, and we have provided a figure below for you to consider.
- What activities did you undertake in each of the four phases? Please describe them and their impact on your teaching.
- Was there anything that impeded your progress to date?
- Are there things that would help to further your growth as an inclusive educator?
- As part of your typical course creation and implementation, what kinds of DEI practices do you engage in? Here, you might consider your course content, syllabus design, assignment structures, use of community building, classroom dynamics, and/or policies. Why do you choose to implement these practices? How have you measured the impact of these practices?
- As you have implemented various DEI practices, what did you learn (e.g., did it lead you to retain and refine those practices, or abandon them in favor of other DEI practices, etc.)?
- As you reflect on your DEI activities, how will your inclusive teaching continue to evolve? What are some of your DEI goals for the future?
- What do you see as the costs and rewards of inclusive teaching for yourself, for faculty in general, and for the institution?
- Are there any general or specific approaches or practices around DEI that you struggle with or are unsure about how to design/implement?
- What have we not asked you about regarding DEI practices that influence the teaching, learning, or flourishing that occurs in your learning spaces?
Your reflection will provide a more complete picture of the varied ways instructors are able to engage in teaching activities that support DEI.
In recognition of the time and effort that this reflection will take, the HHMI Inclusive Excellence Team will provide a $200 stipend for any instructor who submits a 1–3-page reflection by June 21, 2023 . Reflections should be submitted to this Qualtrics form . If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Jane Liu.
These reflections will be read by members of the HHMI Core Team (Jane Liu, Dylan Worcester, Travis Brown, Avis Hinkson, Sara Hollar, April Mayes, Hector Sambolin, Jr., Sharon Stranford). An outside evaluator may also read the reflections to aid in qualitative analysis. Your reflections will not be shared with anyone else at the College without your permission. Data collected from this project will be used to directly address the aims stated above. A report summarizing the reflections (but not sharing any individual reflections) will be presented to the College. The collected responses will allow the HHMI Core Team and the IIE to focus on how best to gather information about DEI teaching practices on campus, to better guide instructors in their own reflections on DEI practices, and for future uses focused on creating a more inclusive climate on Pomona’s campus. A goal is to create a process for community sharing of the many ways instructors support DEI in their learning spaces.
For those seeking feedback, we encourage you to share your reflections, if desired, with trusted colleagues. The IIE and 7C CTL would also be able to provide feedback for those who are interested.