Logistics and Resources

I'm re-posting the Zoom info for our meeting below for anyone who may need it. I'm also going to be linking to this post in the Logistics playlist, so you can always check there to access this persistent meeting link for any of our future discussions. Join Zoom Meeting https://msu.zoom.us/j/95148307886 Meeting ID: 951 4830 7886 Passcode: 432210

In case you're the type of person who likes to view meeting agendas, here's the slides Stokes and I used for our kickoff meeting on Sept. 29. - GJS https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nxVTNWKSD4zD9DhLic9xrrz6LMptHOQAuYc_abvsHyk/edit?usp=sharing

Our conversation of Masland on 10/8 broke free from the agenda in the best ways, but here's a link to that doc nonetheless for posterity's sake. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dnU9rmQWICUUihIajmjXG8jg2t2OX4aMMoJGE5nXA9E/edit?usp=sharing

Hello again everyone! Our reading group on Student Engagement and Success is slated to meat for 90 minutes this Friday morning (October 22nd) at 10am. Hope to see you then. For your convenience, here are the questions we'll discuss (or use as jumping off points) related to Chapter One in our book Student Engagement in Higher Education, Third Edition: Questions on Pendakur, Quaye, and Harper (Ch. 1) 1) What is your view of Pendakur, Quaye, and Harper’s assertion that U.S. higher education, in general, is obligated to do more to foster student engagement within and beyond the classroom? What might be some practical challenges to do that? 2) In the Preface, Pendakur, Quaye, and Harper suggest that there is something temporally specific about the crisis of engagement they and their contributors describe. How would you describe engagement as a timely matter? In other words - what shape(s) does the issue of engagement take in 2021? 3) At the micro level (within our own teaching, advising, or other close work with students), how might we address the issue? What are some concrete steps we might take? 4) Describe your reaction(s) to the approach advocated at the bottom of p. 6, “Faculty and student affairs educators must foster the conditions to enable diverse populations of students to be engaged, persist, and thrive.” Where do you see difficulties with that aim? How might you nevertheless integrate that goal into your own practices? What might you change or adapt? 5) What makes PQH’s intersectional and anti-deficit lens appealing for this type of research? In particular, how do you respond to the book’s organizational reliance upon identity-based systems of oppression (which, we should note, we’ve proposed to use as an organizing principle for our discussions as well)? 6) What are some concrete ways we might be more intentional in our teaching/advising practices or other close work with students when it comes to cultivating their engagement. How do we help them to help themselves? 7) Pendakur, Quaye, and Harper discuss Tinto’s assertion that academic (and social) communities are key to student engagement, performance, and retention (4-5). What is your own view? How might the use of academic communities (student learning teams) nevertheless present challenges of one kind or another? What might be some concrete steps we could take to ease or avoid potential issues? 8) Near the end of Chapter One, Pendakur, Quaye, and Harper acknowledge that “Linking theory and practice is not simple” (12). Realistically, how might we achieve at least some of what they call for? How could we maximize results -- “the amount of time and effort students put into their [Gen. Ed. or Prereq.] studies” -- without completely redesigning our courses and component classes/modules? 9) In the “Distinguishing Educationally Purposeful Engagement” section, PQH mention the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which has collected data on ten engagement indicators for approx. 4,000,000 college students since 2000. What, if any, familiarity do you have with the NSSE, and how do you respond to their engagement indicators (subcategorized under Academic Challenge, Learning with Peers, Experiences with Faculty, Campus Environment) and High-Impact Practices (service learning, study abroad, research with faculty, internships)? 10) PQH deride the so-called “magical thinking” philosophy that undergirds much traditional scholarship of engagement and insist, instead, that “educators must facilitate structured opportunities for these dialogues to transpire” (8). What experience have you had with this type of facilitation? How did it seem to benefit the students involved? 11) For your own courses, what would you prioritize when it comes to fostering greater student engagement? How might you create or improve conditions that could facilitate that?

So many great resources shared in the chat from today's meeting! See below for the saved transcript; I highlighted any concrete objects for easy parsing.

Chapter 5: Notes and questions 1. Erasure: “We must engage in critical self-reflection about the conscious and unconscious ways higher education continues to participate in Native people’s erasure and develop decolonial engagement practices that foreground Native movements for cultural/political sovereignty and self-determination.” 2. Assimilation: “…the problematic goal of assimilation…” 3. Social Justice: “…scholars must work toward social change.” 4. Storying: “Stories are not separate from theory.” 5. Strategies offered: a. Develop and Maintain Relationships with Indigenous Communities i. Can a faculty member do this within their pedagogy? How? ii. Can we encourage our students to do this in our classes/programs? How? b. Honor Connections to Place c. Build Community with Indigenous Students d. Support and Protect Indigenous Student Cultural Practices e. Foster Student Connections to Home Communities f. Reframe Concepts of Student Engagement (WE, meaning the university community writ large, are the uninvited guests) Chapter 6: Notes and Questions 1. “Whiteness is not a culture but a social concept” 2. “Critical White Studies”: ideas for how to use/introduce this to students? Will you? Why or why not? (“critically analyzing Whiteness and racial oppression from the habits and structures of the privileged group”) 3. In your current class design/structure, what ways could your own whiteness influence your students in invisible ways? Does it? 4. In your current class design/structure, what ways could your white students’ whiteness influence your POC, international students, etc… in invisible ways? Does it? 5. What aspects of “humanizing pedagogy” happen in your classes? 6. Have you ever shared your course design with a POC peer? 7. Thoughts of where “Nontraditional” white students (older students, part-time students, transfer students, commuter students, student-parents, veteran students (and I would argue other cross-sectional/intersectional identities of queerness, transgender students, religious minorities, disability, etc…)) and traditional white students INTERSECT or DIVERGE in terms of student success initiatives?