Addressing Racial and Social Injustice
[Originally posted at https://blogs.uco.edu/tts/addressing-racial-and-social-injustice by Jeff King]
The Center for Excellence in Transformative Teaching and Learning (CETTL) includes the 21st Century Pedagogy Institute (21CPI), Student Transformative Learning Record (STLR), and Educators’ Leadership Academy (ELA). Collectively, we serve faculty and students at UCO and beyond.
In times that underscore the ongoing need to not just denounce racism but to be anti-racist, CETTL, 21CPI, STLR, and ELA commit to more than simply continuing what we do now, such as our ongoing work over the years like past development opportunities around race and sexual identities, and faculty-led book groups on titles like White Fragility and Teaching Queer, and our STLR work with Global & Cultural Competencies. (Please visit Selected Professional Development Resources about Social Injustice for Faculty and Staff.) We further commit to accepting the challenge that we, UCO, and the nation must meet to bring justice and equity to our campus and our society for all Black people and People of Color as well as other marginalized and disenfranchised groups and individuals among our fellow colleagues and citizens.
Perhaps no other college or university is more strongly called to meet this challenge. Because UCO centers itself around Transformative Learning (TL), we must in these times follow its process, one that literally defines personal learning and growth as prompted by disorienting dilemmas that lead to critical self-reflection followed by perspective shifts that help learners change themselves and their conceptions to embrace new and better ways of being.
We’re a university. Learning is what we do. Past learning and growth to become less racist is part of who we are, but now we are challenged to learn more, to do more.
Protests across the nation are calling attention to what for many in the privileged class may be the disorienting dilemma that is our country’s current and long-standing failure to ensure equity in treatment for Black people and People of Color, LGBTQIA+, and other groups suffering unequal treatment. Among our fellow citizens and colleagues who suffer the inequitable treatment dilemma daily, there is always the dilemma of how to make a co-worker or a group or a nation listen, to understand, to change.
We commit to listen. We will work to understand, and we will change as a result of our critical reflection and with the help and guidance of colleagues. To that end, CETTL, 21CPI, STLR, ELA are initiating among ourselves TL-focused processes with the intent to improve ourselves to become better colleagues and models for others. We hope our journey will produce transformative realizations in service to adding to the broader solution so necessary right now.
This is in addition to the work we do daily to support diversity and inclusivity and in providing resources and learning opportunities to support the transformative realizations and the resulting behavior and mindset changes that others may seek.
Jeff King, Ed.D., Executive Director, Center for Excellence in Transformative Teaching and Learning (CETTL)
Jody Horn, Ph.D., Director, 21st Century Pedagogy Institute (21 CPI)
Cary Williams, Director, Educators’ Leadership Academy (ELA)
Camille Farrell, M.Ed., Assistant Director, Student Transformative Learning Record (STLR)
Mark Walvoord, M.S., Assistant Director, Student Transformative Learning Record (STLR)
Brenton Wimmer, Ph.D., Assistant Director, Transformative Learning (TL) Assessment
Jon Hicks, Administrative Assistant III, CETTL
100 N. University Dr., Box 212, CTL 200 • Edmond, OK 73034 • Phone (405) 974-5570
cettl.uco.edu • 21CPI.uco.edu • stlr.uco.edu • ela.uco.edu • tlconference.uco.edu