The university will continue to support the Inclusive Teaching Professional Development Programs offered by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). CRLT will both (1) continue to offer campuswide programs about inclusive teaching for instructors in multiple disciplines and (2) work with schools and colleges to create faculty professional development programs that reflect their particular pedagogical needs and make learning more inclusive and equitable across a diverse student body. In addition, CRLT will continue to offer inclusive teaching workshops for new and experienced graduate student instructors.
Year Four Progress
On the unit level, DEI was a strong focus of CRLT’s Teaching Academy programs, which serve new faculty in 10 schools and colleges. We also offered 41 faculty workshops and retreats. Campuswide, CRLT presented 22 DEI-focused pedagogy workshops through its fall and winter seminar series, along with a set of programs for instructors who teach courses that fulfill LSA’s race and ethnicity (R&E) requirement. In addition, several programs and workshops on inclusive teaching were offered specifically for lecturers.
During Year Four, CRLT pursued its mission through a growing roster of campuswide and unit-level programs, despite inevitable postponements and cancellations due to the COVID-19 crisis, which shut down all in-person events beginning in mid-March.
The CRLT Players continued their work on promoting a climate resistant to sexual harassment, conducting seven departmental sessions and facilitating six day-long workshops for academic leaders and their teams. Campuswide, we offered 22 DEI-focused pedagogy workshops through our fall and winter seminar series.
Support for the LSA race and ethnicity (R&E) requirement included: two GSI learning communities in Fall and Winter terms (engaging a total of 43 GSIs, up from 24 last year); the launch of the R&E Graduate Student Instructor Consultant (GSIC) Program; an R&E workshop for all CRLT GSICs; a lunch program for faculty teaching R&E courses in the winter semester (engaging about 31 instructors); a new R&E-focused workshop for the CRLT seminar series focused on anti-racist pedagogy and delivered three times over the course of the year; programming and support for an LSA cross-departmental R&E working group of assistant professors and postdocs; and customized workshops for faculty in three departments.
Programs and workshops on inclusive teaching offered specifically for lecturers included a year-long professional development program funded by ODEI and a half-day orientation program for new LSA lecturers created in partnership with LSA.
During Fall and Winter terms, 1,370 GSIs and undergraduate instructional aides attended plenary sessions on inclusive teaching at our all-campus and Engineering GSI teaching orientations. In addition, CRLT offered customized workshops for GSIs in four LSA departments and once again collaborated with IGR on the five-part Diversity and Inclusive Teaching Seminar for graduate students, co-sponsored by Rackham.
To further support its work in all schools and colleges, CRLT published blog posts on topics related to inclusive teaching and continued to conduct one-on-one consultations with dozens of instructors focused on inclusive teaching. This included intensive ongoing consultations with teams from 11 courses around equity in teaching as part of the Foundational Course Initiative (FCI). We also conferred with unit leaders in multiple schools and colleges on professional development programs for faculty and assessment strategies for inclusive teaching as part of annual review and promotion processes.
Responsibility: Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT)