OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Project: Sustainability 331
Our team brought expertise in environmental science, education, and community building. Through the DPD academy, we were able to further develop our understanding of social justice, DPD, and how to effectively teach these challenging topics while also supporting and developing the knowledge base of our whole program. Many of the courses in the sustainability double-degree program focus on the science of sustainability, but our students expressed wanting to know more about how positive change can occur, and this course, SUS 331, is one response. We recognize that many sustainability crises are local, and the people most impacted tend to be groups already experiencing difference, lack of power, and discrimination. In our course, we examine transformational responses led by those most affected -- that address the environmental problem while also building social and economic power for those affected. We critically think about, and evaluate, the efficacy of sustainability organizations and movements while learning and analyzing the tools and tactics used to achieve positive changes. A goal of the course is for students to develop place-based awareness of environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainability where they live and to be able to critically think about how their local community examples connect to larger systems of difference, power, and discrimination.
Project: Behavioral and Experimental Economics (AEC 699)
I participated in the DPD Academy to weave diversity, power and discrimination topics and examples and topics throughout the curriculum when talking about traditional behavioral and experimental economics approaches. This is particularly important as it highlights the ubiquitousness of the issues of inequity, diversity and privilege in economics research. The course now includes several topics and reading relating to gender, race, and researcher biases potentially driven by DPD issues.
Project: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity
This course explores how Settler Colonialism has and does create an atmosphere of oppression for indigenous cultures, especially traditional cultures of matrilineal order regarding the development and colonization of the United States and also India. The course’s curriculum can be administered in both Ecampus and onsite settings, and gives students a variety of learning formats, opportunities for self-reflection, and exercises that help them examine privilege and entitlement.
Project: Environmental Justice (GEO 309)
Ever since I learned about the DPD program through a call-for-proposals via the university-wide listserv, I was eager to participate and learn about the variety of ways to embrace and encourage an inclusive classroom. I have taught DPD courses and have also developed a DPD course for campus-based and e-campus delivery and was therefore motivated to expand my knowledge about the diversity of the student-body. As a result of DPD, I was made aware that including one’s gender identity in a signature line or as an introduction in a classroom can be an inclusive gesture. I was also made aware of the multiple characteristics and types of “diversity” which exist on campus and that only by recognizing the many faces of diversity can we begin to intentionally be truly inclusive of our students. I have overhauled my Geo 309 – Environmental Justice e-campus course and made a conscious effort to use the training from the DPD Summer Academy to tailor my curriculum and pedagogy to reflect and embrace what I learned and create a welcoming and transformative learning experience for my students.
Project: Advancement of Women Faculty in STEM Disciplines
I participated in the DPD program motivated by the potential start of an NSF ADVANCE project focused on increasing the recruitment, retention and advancement of women faculty members in STEM disciplines. My objective was to gain a better understanding of the DPD concepts and to think about ways in which these concepts could be effectively and efficiently communicated specifically to individuals with STEM educational backgrounds. My participation in the DPD program resulted in a marked increase in my understanding of systems of oppression and the way institutional structures perpetuate the existing status of power and privilege. The DPD program fundamentally changed my relationship to individuals (even my own children), but perhaps more importantly, it gave me the tools to see the manifestations of systems of oppression in the academic enterprise - a necessary first step towards dismantling them. I now also have an enhanced understanding of how much more I need to learn, and the tools, vocabulary, and ignited passion to make progress on the important work proposed in our NSF ADVANCE program that addresses the issues of difference, power and discrimination as they apply to underrepresented groups in the STEM academic enterprise.
Project: History of Higher Education (AHE 638)
My participation in the DPD Academy has impacted how I function in at least three spheres of influence in my professional role. First, the curriculum we were immersed in for the two weeks of the academy helped supplement activities and issues at the center of a Social Justice Retreat that the faculty in my discipline facilitate during orientation for incoming master’s and doctoral students. Second, it has given me the language to be able to identify feelings and emotions that I was not able to articulate before. This has been the most useful when communicating with my colleagues across the college. I can now give voice and identify the power dynamics, discrimination and microaggressions I witness without questioning if they only exist in my head. Finally, I have revised the History of Higher Education doctoral course to dissect how historical exclusion and initial institutional missions perpetuate contemporary inequity of access and success.
Project: Inclusive and Socially-just Teaming Practices
Our team developed a strategic, scaffolded approach to enhancing students’ knowledge and skills supporting inclusive and socially-just teaming practices. This approach was implemented and assessed across the chemical engineering, bioengineering and environmental engineering (CBEE) undergraduate programs.
Four senior courses with a significant team component (weekly and final projects completed by student teams of three) were impacted. The CBEE seniors were provided with newly-developed teaming tools to enable them to engage in successful teaming practices. Teams were instructed on how to develop team contracts, which were completed at the beginning of the term. A conflict management module was also developed and implemented.
Student-to-student peer review and student self-reflection were also identified as critical elements for successful and inclusive team-based work. CATME.org (Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness) was implemented for students to rate themselves and their teammates on various metrics related to effective teaming. It was our hope that the practice of considering best practices for effective teaming would encourage self-reflection among the students on effective and inclusive teaming skills.
Project: Communications Security and Social Developments (CS 175)
As a faculty member outside of the College of Liberal Arts in an academic unit at that time without a single DPD course offering, the DPD Academy provided essential and accessible support in developing a course intended for students both in CLA and Engineering and Computer Science. I approached the DPD Academy with knowledge of current and historic social injustices and the social movements intended to redress them, and during the Academy was able to formalize my understanding within critical frameworks. Of great importance also was the appreciation I gained for the classroom experiences of diverse marginalized groups of students—this has greatly improved my capacity to better serve all students at OSU. This year, I completed two projects: first, the syllabus for CS 175: Communications Security and Social Movements was developed and submitted for approval as a multidisciplinary course aimed at students with academic backgrounds in the study or practice of liberatory social movements as well as those with a (formal or informal) technical background in computer science. Second, I developed and taught a pilot DPD graduate course intended for all graduate students entering the Faculty of Engineering. This was a particularly challenging and extremely rewarding endeavor: the majority are international students, arriving to OSU in many cases without previous experience living in the US, and arriving from countries where both social norms and discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, and ability can vary greatly from that experienced within the US.
Project: Introductory environmental engineering
I tried to incorporate environmental justice into an introductory environmental engineering course. I restructured the course to center on three concepts, including “Environmental Justice is effected by and sometimes enacted through environmental engineering.” Throughout the term students were encouraged to reflect on an engineer’s role in society, with particular prompting to question common narratives of the engineer as a protector of the environment or public servant. Students analyzed case studies of complex issues such as synthetic fertilizer application and were asked to take various perspectives. I hope to continue to develop more (and better) assignments and assessments that emphasize the ways social, political, ethical and moral issues are intertwined with the purely technical issues engineering students are used to addressing.
Project: Social Issues in EECS (CS 507)
My DPD project is to develop a 3-credit graduate course that gives a basic introduction to the topics of DPD, social justice, and ethics, and connect them to contemporary research topics in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The motivation for the course comes from two sources – the social responsibility of scientists and the social justice ideals of the academy. A significant part of the course is aimed at dissecting the reasons for lack of diversity in EECS—both in the classrooms and in the work places. To put this in historical perspective, the course covers the history of racism in the US and in Oregon as well as a number of social movements from the women’s suffrage movement to the contemporary black lives matter movement. It then circles back to the topics of computer science and engineering including the impact of technology on society, the role of algorithms in implementing fairness, the ethics of autonomous weapons, the impact of robots on the economy and the privacy and security of communications. The course will be organized around weekly readings and a series of small group discussions with a final writing project on a topic chosen by the students.
Project: United States Religion and Social Reform
When I participated in the DPD Academy, my main objective was to consider ways in which I could better include active learning in my courses—both online and on campus. I did not feel like I was in need of much training in handling concepts such as gender, race, and intersectionality, as these modes of inquiry are already heavily emphasized in the fields I teach (history and religious studies). That said, I appreciated the readings and discussions on these topics, but I was particularly focused on examples of ways to make these concepts more tangible for students by more actively engaging them in the learning process.
During the academic year, I developed a course entitled United States Religion and Social Reform (REL/HST 364), and I redeveloped a pre-existing course on U.S. History since 1920 (HST 203).
Project: Psychology of Disability (PSY 499/599)
I attended the DPD Academy to revise my “Psychology of Disability” course and infuse it with DPD principles. This course is intended to serve as one of several core courses in a Disability Studies Certificate I am helping develop, all of which should involve DPD ideas. My course explores the social construction of disability from social psychological and disability studies perspectives. Based on my DPD training, I added new readings and videos and also completely overhauled the major class project. Inspired by the idea of participatory action research used by some of my colleagues in the academy, I created a project that flips the traditional psychological model of doing research. In class, we now discuss the way that research can be biased when stakeholders are not involved as collaborators. Students now conduct participatory action research-based research prospectuses which are derived from one-on-one consultations with people with disabilities. Looking back, two of the most helpful parts of the DPD program were the modeling of group activities and leading challenging discussions. Not only was my Psychology of Disability class the most engaged yet, I noticed that my ability to lead discussions and prompt student critical thinking improved in all of my classes.
Project: Understanding Grammar (WR 330)
I have been advancing the grammar curriculum for the School of Writing, Literature, and Film. In my development of three new grammar courses (and in the redevelopment of one existing course), I have built in a significant focus on the ways grammar influences and is influenced by systems of power.
Project: Multicultural American Theatre
I attended the DPD Academy in order to revise and begin teaching TA 360: Multicultural American Theatre. In this class, I decided to focus on plays from five groups: African-American, Latinx, Asian-American, LGBTQ, and feminist theatre. Beyond reading and discussing plays, we also discussed the social, cultural, and historical backgrounds for each of the pieces. Some of those topics included civil rights movements, police violence, immigration, and intersectionality. After taking the DPD Academy I also included a special presentation about the history of racism and discrimination in Oregon and at Oregon State, which many students found both unsettling and enlightening. I chose to make the course primarily a seminar-style class, which allowed for a great deal of discussion of the material and sharing of information amongst the students. To date, this is my favorite class I’ve ever taught, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity and the amazing information I learned in the DPD Academy.
Project: Food and Social Justice
I learned about the DPD Academy from a senior faculty member in my department, who counted it amongst her most valuable continuing education pieces. Having now been through it myself, I have to agree. My project for the Academy focused on food and social justice and involved revising an existing course to align with the DPD program goals and outcomes. The revised course includes more U.S. content (although it retained international elements) and both historical and contemporary examples. It also makes use of interactive learning strategies, particularly writing-to-learn activities and guided discussion. In both formal and low-stakes assignments, students in this course are challenged to think critically about how food practices sustain oppression and discrimination. Course readings deal with multiple forms of difference, socially constructed around and with food, grounded in a broader political-economic context of power and privilege. Topics explored in the course include food and work, food access and insecurity, and food as a reflection of racial, ethnic, gender, and class identity. In revising this course, I have confirmed what I have long known about food; that it is an especially useful lens through which to view multiple and intersecting social justice issues.
Project: Arctic Perspectives on Global Problems (ANTH 447)
I applied perspectives and methodologies from the DPD Academy to re-design my undergraduate anthropology course—Arctic Perspectives on Global Problems—to meet the Baccalaureate Core DPD learning outcomes. The course introduces students to the people, environments, cultures, and histories of the Arctic, with a primary focus on Alaska and secondary connections to Canada, Siberia, and other regions. Whereas the course was previously designed for the "cultural diversity" Bacc. Core category and focused on surveying the contemporary lives and historical experiences of Arctic communities, the course is now designed to engage more directly with forms of difference, power, and discrimination. One of the primary goals is to introduce students to the epistemologies and ontologies of Arctic peoples and illuminate the ways multiple forms of knowledge and power interact and often come into conflict. Many of the course materials explore tensions between Arctic perspectives and the perspectives of scientists, government officials, NGOs, non-native settlers, and the general public. A second major goal is to connect the contemporary challenges facing Arctic communities to recurring inequities arising from experiences of settler colonialism, dispossession, and assimilation. This approach provides a unifying perspective from which students examine seemingly disparate issues, from natural resource management and traditional ecological knowledge to climate change adaptation and indigenous rights movements.
Project: Teaching Class
Although you might expect sociologists to be born experts in understanding, analyzing, and teaching social inequalities, we need constant training as much as anyone else. The DPD Academy allowed me the time to think through and organize how to teach a course entirely devoted to class. Taking part in the academy reignited my passion for teaching, honestly and effectively, the hard truths of living in an unequal society. It reminded me that teaching is as much about encouraging the growth of wisdom as it is the dissemination of knowledge. All of that has helped me create a great little course on class, which will be taught to both undergraduates and graduate students in public policy.
Project: Philosophy and the Arts (PHL 360)
PHL 360 Philosophy of Art is a survey course taken by philosophy majors and minors and students in allied disciplines. My project was to amend the course by incorporating texts from recent African-American philosophers and African-British philosophers, and in so doing examine the wisdom of these voices and of the intellectual and artistic traditions they draw on. Black voices have been overlooked or under-attended in the inherited canon of English-speaking philosophy and so this project is part of building a more inclusive profession and intellectual community, as well as a more welcoming classroom.
The black women we attended to this term were all artists that Paul C. Taylor was writing about. The material covered from his book worked really well as a unit. My great joy was how engaged the students seemed to be by the reading in this topic, even more than I hoped. For myself, I really enjoyed teaching something so fresh. Also Taylor’s putting black-aesthetic writings into period styles gave us meaningful yet flexible concepts to work with and ought to help me weave in or add the additional voices in an organized way.
Project: Queer Literatures: Theory, Narrative, and Aesthetics
I attended the Difference, Power, and Discrimination intensive seminar to formulate a course for the School of Writing, Literature, and Film on Queer Literatures. During the course of the DPD academy, I decided to design this course as a DPD course. As such, I thought of the unique ways in which queer reading practices and narratives would serve graduate students in order to illuminate the larger imperatives of DPD. I designed the class to illuminate queerness as an intersectional category, one that pivots and shifts according to different histories of oppression, race, gender, and disability. The DPD academy was especially useful insofar as it highlighted not just an impressive range of topics (Fat Studies, Settler Colonialism, Trans* Issues), but also as an intensive re-orientation to pedagogies that serve our students in order to help them think critically about the world in which we live. I found each day to be open, provocative, and ground shaking. Because of DPD, the scope and range of my class has opened up in ways that I think will be transformative for all of us discussing the many texts and movements of queerness.
Project: Farmworker Justice Movements
My project was to introduce a new course into the DPD curriculum. "Farmworker Justice Movements” is a collaborative, team-taught course with leadership of PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste) and me. Justice movements for farmworkers have a long and storied past in the annals of US labor history. The course begins with the 1960s Chicano civil rights era struggles for social justice to present day. It focuses on the varied strategies of four farmworker justice movements: United Farm Workers, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Noroeste, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. As an ethnic studies comparative upper-division course with obvious Social Justice minor and DPD linkages, the course is structured around the question of the movement and its various articulations.
Project: Why War (HST 317)
I enrolled in the DPD Academy originally to find ways to improve my teaching to meet the needs of all learners. While the Academy certainly met that objective, in many ways the process and support has given me a foundation that exceeded my expectations. It was also an opportunity for a needed pause for self-reflection on my teaching as a whole and by looking back, allowed me to move forward. Since completing the DPD course I have become more determined to center issues of justice, color and diversity in my Department and classes.
My on-campus Why War 317 classes since the Academy are much more activity and student learning centered. The DPD training gave me more confidence to use even less lecturing and facilitate instead needed but difficult conversations. I am currently integrating a Socratic method of teaching the class, being led by students queries that are written down, so all have an equal access to co-producing knowledge in the room. In addition, I have eliminated the midterm and replaced it with reading engagement groups that still assess comprehension but focus on the course materials and objectives in a more cooperative way.
Project: African American Literature (ENG 221)
My project was to revise an existing course, ENG 221 African American Literature, so that it could be part of the DPD curriculum. ENG 221 is designed to introduce students to some of the key genres, authors, and movements in African American Literature. The central focus of the class can shift from term to term, but generally addresses historical and cultural change over time as well as sustained, careful analyses of individual works. Revising the course for the DPD program involved developing many more ungraded and interactive assignments in the class, as well as exercises that require students to make explicit connections between historical and contemporary representations, systems, and experiences of race-based oppression and resistance. While I had often aimed to accomplish such tasks and outcomes in previous classes, participating in the DPD program gave me methods and tools that have already profoundly reshaped my pedagogy. I know I'm still learning how transformative it was for me and, I trust, for my students.
Project: Governing After the Zombie Apocalypse (PS 110)
I participated in the DPD program with the intention to revise my Gender and Law course. However, as the program progressed my intention changed. It became clear to me that the DPD course material should be introduced at a much earlier stage in the collegiate career. It needs to serve as a base for all other work to follow. My Gender and Law course is an upper division course. I saw the value in constructing a course starting with the DPD criteria rather than trying to revise it into the course. During one of our small group interactions, we brainstormed new ideas for courses that would be attractive to first and second year students. It was during this session that PS 110 was born. The course is simulation based. A catastrophe has struck the world and the U.S. has been changed irrevocably. Some citizens are now altered; these citizens are my zombies—my other—and the students are the members of a constitutional convention convened to organize a new government. As the students make choices about the institutions and rules for this new government, they will interrogate each choice for how that choice includes or excludes—how that choice advantages or disadvantages various populations. Without the DPD seminar and the collegial nature of the work in that space, I would not have embarked on this effort. The seminar broadened my view of the DPD curriculum and social justice issues. Too often social justice is narrowly construed and the DPD seminar simply does not allow you to sit in a space where social justice is simply an issue of gender or race. I find that I am more cognizant addressing social justice issues in all of my classes and my research whenever the opportunity presents itself, even if I must manufacture that opportunity.
Project: Applying Concepts of Difference, Power and Discrimination to OSU’s NSF National Research Traineeship on Risk and Uncertainty
OSU was awarded an NSF National Research Traineeship (NRT) grant to develop a research and training program on Risk and Uncertainty Quantification in Marine Science, as part of NSF’s NRT – Data Enabled Science and Engineering (DESE) track. The program consists of training graduate (Masters and PhD) students to work on transdisciplinary issues in a collaborative structure across the fields of science, engineering, math, statistics, public policy, the humanities, and other interdisciplinary areas that engage with human dimensions of natural resources. My DPD project relates to developing support for retention and preparation of NRT participants for successful and fulfilling career placement, through training and assessment of learning of DPD-related concepts. Of particular relevance to this program, questions of epistemic injustice, self-reflection and identify, and inherent biases will be the focus of DPD content. NRT leadership is committed to achieving these aims, and is aware that it is not only necessary to have program leaders and faculty who actively recruit URMs, but also to have an institutional environment of inclusion and self-reflection from the faculty through the student body. To this end, as a result of my participation in the DPD academy, we have further engaged in conversations within the leadership group that foster self-reflection and active choices around future faculty-student teams that also embrace inclusion, awareness and practices reflective of DPD principles.
Project: Gender, Sexuality and the Photographic Image
I attended the DPD Academy in order to attain a course number and DPD designation for my special topics course, Gender, Sexuality and the Photographic Image. This course examines the ways in which photography is used to define and reinforce social constructs and the ways in which artists have used the language of photography to address and undermine dominant ideologies in relation to gender and sexuality. I had the opportunity to make changes in the classroom prior to officially having the DPD designation. The most notable changes were in the way the material was shared with the students. For example, moving away from a lecture and discussion format, I often had the students work in small groups, used exercises like “save the last word for me” and made time to share personal experiences with one another in structured formats. I also shared personal anecdotes from my life that highlighted course material, something I hadn’t previously done. I designed two “Theoretical Storytelling” assignments that employ experiential learning in order to address oppression on an institutional level. In this short statement I am unable to describe the immensely positive impact that the DPD program has had on my teaching philosophy, art practice, and long-term goals as an educator and artist. Suffice it say that it was literally life-changing.
Project: Racial Inequality in Education (SOC 499/599)
My project was to revise a course using DPD principles and outcomes as a guiding framework. "Racial Inequality in Education” is a slash course offered in the Sociology Program. The course explores the relationship between racial/ethnic inequality and education and examines schools as a contested site where the production and resistance of inequality occurs. The course begins with a historical overview and then focuses on contemporary social, cultural and political dynamics of race and education.
Project: Professional Helping Skills (HDFS 462)
Through participation in the DPD Summer Academy, we served as a Transformation Team, to revise key undergraduate Human Development and Family Science (HDFS) courses that are within the Human Services option. HDFS is a multidisciplinary program, and the Human Services option has historically been responsive to issues of inclusion and intersectionality. We aimed, though, to increase our focus on institutionalized systems of inequity and privilege in the United States. Our goal was to strengthen our students’ personal and professional ability to engage in collaborative, strengths-based practices to resolve individual, family, and community problems. Through focused attention, we revised core curriculum to enrich student learning of systems of inequity and privilege.
Project: Critical Thinking in HDFS (HDFS 360)
As an instructor in the Human Development Family Sciences department and a member of the OSU-Cascades Diversity Committee, I was very excited to attend the DPD Academy in hopes that I could bring more DPD material to my classes and in hopes that I could offer DPD information to the diversity committee and to the faculty at our campus.
My learning experience through the Academy was very positive! I enjoyed the format of reading each day in preparation for our morning “classes” together. Our discussion of disability was the topic that was most impactful for me.
The DPD Academy also offered a lot of invaluable information about what DPD courses are and about the process to apply for DPD designation. I learned that once a course is designated DPD, it must be taught as a DPD course on all campuses, regardless of whether instructors teaching the course have completed DPD training.
It was a huge benefit to work with main campus HDFS faculty to consider how to incorporate DPD material into courses and to discuss whether we might want to pursue the DPD designation for additional HDFS classes.
Project: Development of BI 175 Genomes, Identities, & Societies
This new course will offer students the opportunity to explore the relationships among DNA, humans, and the societies in which they evolve. The course will be divided into four units. In Unit 1, students will learn about interdisciplinary approaches and ‘systems’ thinking, as applied in biology and the social sciences. In Unit 2, the class will focus on concepts in eugenics. Students will examine historical and contemporary case studies, focusing on examples in Oregon, the USA, and other parts of the world. In Unit 3, the class will dissect the relative roles of genetics and society in defining racial and gender categories, and associated implications. In Unit 4, students will study modern advances in biotechnology and their applications in genetic testing and genome editing. The discussion will delve deep into the societal implications of these new technologies.
Project: Community-Based Participatory Research
I participated in the DPD Academy in order to build my knowledge of how DPD plays out in our society. As the College of Public Health and Human Sciences liaison librarian, my overarching goal was to better help health science students understand the significant value that participatory research studies offer in addressing many different public health issues faced by marginalized communities. I began learning the language that is used to talk about these issues, and I now have a better understanding of how various systems of oppression are perpetuated. Learning alongside a diverse cohort, whose many lived experiences were often radically different than mine, helped beyond measure with my understanding of what difference, power, and discrimination looks and feels like in many different contexts. I have applied what I learned in the creation of an online guide for students seeking community-based participatory research in the published scholarly literature.
Project: Women in Art
I attended the DPD Academy with two goals in mind: incorporating DPD principles and practices into my visual arts courses; and revising one of my courses, Women in Art, to attain DPD designation. My Women in Art course explores concepts of structural inequality, difference, power, and discrimination through a critical survey of women as artists and as subjects in art, from early modernism to the contemporary period in the United States. It investigates issues such as the representation of women in visual culture; women's access to education, training, and exhibition opportunities; and their public exposure as artists, collectors, and activists. In addition to helping me construct my curriculum, attending the DPD Academy was invaluable in thinking about ways to activate the classroom beyond the “ping pong effect” of traditional student-teacher engagement. Demoing different class activities, projects, and group discussion formats reinforced that discussion and dialogue can and likely should take on many different permutations inside and outside of the walls of the classroom.
