Sustainable Development Goals

Upcoming:

• Aug 20
  

  Welcome Back Faculty

  Time:  8:30am—4:30pm

  Welcome Week Day 3
  
  Welcome Back to all our faculty, see full details below:
  
  
  

• Aug 20

  Speaker: Dr. Evava Pietri

  Time:  9:30am—11:30am

  Fostering Inclusivity: A Practical Guide to Incorporating Identity Safety Cues into Your Educational Materials and Communications

   

  Identity safety cues (ISCs) are signals in a given environment that suggest people with marginalized identities (e.g., Black or Latin Americans, women, members of the LGBTQ community, or first-generation college students) are valued and will be welcome in that space. These cues can take on a variety of forms, ranging from having an instructor who matches one’s identity and has similar lived experiences to a poster saying “Everyone is Welcome Here”. There is a vast and continually growing body of research demonstrating the benefits of these ISCs, and incorporating ISCs into one’s course can encourage many positive student outcomes, including belonging and self-efficacy in the course, trust in the instructor, and better class engagement and grades. Because of the diversity of ISCs, any course, email, or website can incorporate these valuable cues. In this workshop, I will review the literature on ISCs and work directly with attendees to integrate ISCs into their course materials, emails, websites, and other relevant platforms, providing evidence-based recommendations.

  This workshop will begin with a brief overview of the ISCs literature, outlining how these cues are effective and providing empirical evidence on the benefits of such cues. I will introduce a variety of research-supported ISCs and discuss how to integrate these ISCs into student-facing materials. Importantly, attendees are encouraged to bring a course syllabus, a course assignment, a course lecture, broad email communications, welcome surveys, or a website template to the workshop. As part of the workshop, participants will reflect on what cues they can incorporate into their personal materials. We will also discuss potential challenges and solutions to adding ISCs to one’s materials. I aim for all attendees to leave with at least one additional ISC in their materials and with the confidence to incorporate more moving forward.

  Pre-workshop preparation: please ensure faculty know what they should bring to maximize what they get out of the workshop, so that’s included below.

  Please bring one or two items/materials you would like to make more inclusive. As part of this workshop, we will reflect and discuss ways to incorporate identity safety cues into these materials.

  Example Materials Include (but are not limited to):

  • Course syllabus
  • Course assignment
  • Lecture (either part of a lecture or a full lecture)
  • Welcome survey for students
  • Email template
  • Website template/materials