Antiracism across the curriculum: A grassroots faculty initiative

Abstract

AbstractIn the summer of 2020, a group of 16 faculty and staff working at a small, regional public college that is part of a large state-wide university system created a grassroots initiative to normalize the teaching of race, racism, and antiracism across courses in a variety of disciplines. In this article, we provide an overview of the program along with case studies written by four faculty who transformed their courses to center antiracist content. We conclude with an analysis of the challenges faced by these faculty throughout the process, focusing on how this work requires transforming content through a paradigm shift and considering the greater sociopolitical and emotional climate. Despite limitations, we conclude that the initiative has had a significant impact on our college, ensuring that an increasing number of students on our campus encounter antiracist content across the curriculum.Keywords: Antiracismwhite supremacycourse revisioncurriculum Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsLaurie GrobmanLaurie Grobman is a distinguished professor of English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Penn State Berks. She is a social justice educator, regularly facilitating community-engaged scholarship and pedagogy to (re)write local histories of marginalized ethnic, racial, socioeconomic and cultural communities in Berks County and the city of Reading in Pennsylvania. Her article, “‘Engaging Race’: Critical Race Inquiry and Community-Engaged Scholarship,” received the 2018 NCTE Richard C. Ohmann Outstanding Article in College English Award. She has published several books, including the coauthored Major Decisions: College, Career, and the Case for the Humanities (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).Colleen EnglishColleen English is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology at Penn State Berks. Her research centers on the philosophical and historical dimensions of sport, specifically focusing on gender in sport.Jessica B. SchockerJessica B. Schocker is an Associate Professor of Social Studies Education and Women’s Studies at Penn State Berks. Her scholarship focuses on issues of race and justice in social studies education. She has published and presented research on methods for and outcomes of teaching about and through the experiences of Black women in American History; teaching about race and racism to our youngest learners; and confronting the Civic Empowerment Gap.Allison R. Altman-SinglesAllison R. Altman-Singles is an Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State Berks. Her research focuses on the mechanical consequence of gait and functional movement on bone and the musculoskeletal system.Guadalupe KasperGuadalupe Kasper is Assistant Teaching Professor in Education and has been teaching at Penn State Berks for 20 years. Trained in cultural and linguistic anthropology, Guadalupe teaches general education courses in Sociology and Education. Guadalupe is currently the only faculty of color participating in the AAC. Most of Guadalupe’s classes are explicitly antiracist such as the Sociology of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture. Guadalupe’s experiences in the AAC led her to work with the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Educational Initiative. As the campus liaison for this initiative, Guadalupe provides professional learning to local K-12 educators and shares her experiences and expertise in the teaching of difficult content. Guadalupe routinely works alongside other university experts to support K-12 educators from across the state through an inquiry process that enables them to effectively guide students through difficult content and provide opportunities for emotional growth.Samantha KavkySamantha Kavky is an Associate Professor of Art History at Penn State University, Berks campus and a coeditor of the on-line Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. She teaches General Education courses in European and American art history. She has published articles on Max Ernst and Surrealism in Art History, Source, Res—Anthropology and Aesthetics, and The Space Between. Her current projects include an essay on Surrealist landscape for an anthology Surrealism and Ecology (Vernon Press) and her forthcoming book Surrealist Landscape in the American West (Routledge). She is also a coauthor of Art History: A Thematic Approach, Renaissance to the Present, a textbook forthcoming from Cognella.Lolita A. PaffDr. Lolita A. Paff is Associate Professor of Business & Economics at Penn State Berks. Integrating professional experience as a Certified Public Accountant with subsequent training as an economist, she teaches introductory and advanced courses in accounting, business, and economics. Lolita’s pedagogical interests include classroom and online interaction, metacognition, learner-centered instruction, and student motivation. In 2014 she received a MERLOT Classics Award in Business, a peer-reviewed national recognition, for coauthoring an exemplary online learning resource. She serves on the Teaching Professor conference board, College Teaching’s editorial board, and leads faculty development workshops on a variety of topics. Lolita received her BS in Accounting from The College of New Jersey, MBA from Seton Hall University, and Ph.D. in Business and Economics from Lehigh University.Jayné Park-MartinezJayné Park-Martinez is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Division of Science and the Coordinator of the office of Planning Research & Assessment at Penn State Berks.Brett SpencerBrett Spencer is a reference librarian at the Thun Library at Penn State Berks. He holds a Master of Library and Information Science and a Master of Arts in history from the University of Southern Mississippi.