Strengthening Educational Excellence Through Diversity

Making a positive impact on an inclusive campus climate often begins in individual classrooms. Yet, as instructors well know, adapting teaching practices to meet the needs of a diverse student body is sometimes easier said than done.

Such work involves critical self-reflection and attention to forms of systemic oppression, such as racism or sexism, that impact the learning and retention of so many students. At UW Tacoma, faculty recognized the need to learn about and adapt practices toward anti-bias instruction for their increasingly diverse students, and in 2015, launched the Strengthening Educational Excellence with Diversity (SEED) Teaching Institute. Currently, it is led by the SEED Steering Committee —Dr. Julia Aguirre, Dr. Ariana Ochoa Camacho, Dr. Linda Ishem, Dr. Sushil Oswal, and Dr. Rachel Hershberg. The SEED Institute is offered in the summer. Through SEED, faculty aim to enhance their pedagogies to better support our highly talented and increasingly diverse student body.

Each SEED Institute engages faculty to advance innovation and excellence in teaching and learning by focusing on:

  • Develop Student Voices
  • Cultivating cultural humility
  • Developing student voice
  • Enhancing critical thinking and creating inclusive/anti-racist classrooms

Participant-driven model is critical to success

The success of SEED is largely due to its emphasis on self-reflection, feedback and accountability. During the summer residency, faculty regularly reflect on their learning and their own biases to develop personal cultural competencies. The group shares and receives input on their work every day, and contributes feedback to the program to benefit future cohorts of faculty. That these activities are mostly led by UW Tacoma faculty with expertise in anti-bias teaching increases the impact of the institute. The peer-driven model contributes to participant buy-in.

Activities in the institute are also designed to bring awareness to forms of systemic oppression that affect students — and to then turn that awareness into action. For example, two faculty changed their assessment strategies after reflecting on the potential for bias in grading. They redesigned their curricula to de-emphasize grades and place more value on course learning outcomes. As the instructors implemented the new practice, they found alternative grading allowed for more equitable, holistic student assessment. For example, the 2015 cohort of 15 faculty developed strategies to incorporate student input into assignment design, integrate diversity into course discussions and select course texts from diverse authors. “I always understood most of the ‘why’ behind incorporating inclusive excellence,” notes one participant of the institute’s action-oriented approach. “But I was stumped on the ‘how,’ and that is what I learned from SEED, from both presenters and peers.”