NYKids and UAlbany’s School of Education Diversity Task Force Present on Improvement Initiatives at This Year’s Carnegie Summit
By Jessie Tobin
What role do higher education institutions play in diversifying the education workforce and ensuring students of all backgrounds feel belonging within their chosen fields in education?
NYKids Director and Associate Professor Dr. Kristen C. Wilcox is a member of the University at Albany School of Education’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice (DEIJ) Task Force.
DEIJ initiatives are being headed up by Director of Equity and Inclusion and Assistant Professor Dr. Tammy Ellis-Robinson, who has led a group of School of Education (SOE) faculty in addressing this important question.
The DEIJ Task Force at the University at Albany
The DEIJ Task Force oversees several projects and initiatives within the School of Education:
“The mission of the School of Education’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice is to promote and facilitate the SOE’s efforts to create a school climate that fosters inclusion and diversity of faculty and staff, establishes equitable opportunities and experiences for faculty and students of all backgrounds, and provides guidance and consultation on issues related to increased cultural and social awareness in all educational endeavors.”
Part of the Task Force’s mission is to create a school climate that fosters inclusion and diversity, and one of the ways to do this is to build faculty knowledge of and competency in decolonizing their syllabi.
Decolonizing Syllabi in the University at Albany’s School of Education
The DEIJ Task Force began its work towards decolonizing syllabi after observing lower enrollments of students of color in SOE graduate school programs as well as in the field of education in general.
Garnering insights from graduate student-led discussions and surveys, the problem of focus for the Task Force became clear: Students do not feel a sense of belonging within the School of Education or fields of education outside of the University at Albany.
To address this problem, the Task Force focused on one aim: “To recognize, build, and share values of equity and inclusion in our own syllabi and spread our knowledge to effect changes in other faculty’s syllabi by the end of the fall 2021 semester.”
The two primary drivers team members identified to accomplish this aim were 1) decolonizing syllabi and making pedagogical changes and 2) offering faculty learning opportunities.
To address syllabus and pedagogical changes, Task Force members applied change ideas such as syllabus audits and feedback forms for students in Google Docs. For faculty learning opportunities, the Task Force led workshops for faculty during which they shared examples of revised syllabi and invited collaboration among staff.
Carnegie Summit on Improvement in Education
The Carnegie Summit was established in 2014 and is an opportunity for a diverse range of educational professionals to come together to network and share ideas. During the summit, school leaders and education professionals discuss equity-oriented strategies for tackling problems in education through the lens of Improvement Science.
For this upcoming event, NYKids Director Kristen C. Wilcox and Dr. Tammy Ellis-Robinson prepared a poster presentation outlining the Diversity Task Force’s improvement journey.
Dr. Ellis-Robinson shared her reflections on the work being done by the DEIJ Task Force:
The evolution of educational practice is and should always be a responsive endeavor to connect our students with their preferred dreams through inquiry, engagement, and knowledge-building. Our decolonizing syllabi work provides an entry point to ensure this is at the forefront of our thoughts, along with a grander vision of community at the SOE and beyond.
As educators of educators, we recognize the responsibility and impact that our practice will have not only on our students, but on their students. For this reason, not only do we seek to build a space that mitigates past harm and nurtures a community of belonging and appreciation for our students of color, but we recognize the need to engage all future educators in pursuit of educational justice through a community of appreciation, awareness, learning, respect and …love.
Check out The Carnegie Foundation’s 9th annual Summit on Improvement in Education website: both virtual and on-site options are available. The Summit starts March 27th and continues through March 29th and this year is being held in San Diego, California.
Also see the slide deck on the decolonization effort on the NYKids website.
As always, we thank you for your interest in NYKids and encourage you to reach out with questions and/or for continuous improvement support.
You can contact us at nykids@albany.edu and keep up with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
