Inclusive Excellence

To support an inclusive learning environment at GVSU, we invite faculty to engage with the resources described below. Whether you have a few minutes to spare or are looking for a multi-day institute, we offer all faculty the opportunity to continue to grow, learn, explore on their own, or engage with peers.

Don't Know Where to Start? Explore Our Curated Pages.

Getting Started with Inclusive Teaching

Inclusive Mentoring & Teaching Development

Inclusive Teaching Kits, Tools, & Resources

NCFDD Institutional Membership

Intercultural Development Inventory

Inclusive Focused Professional Development

Inclusive Excellence Teaching Institute (IETI)—Summer 2022!

20-Minute Mentor Commons—20-minute video series on a variety of topics

edX Teaching in a Diverse Classroom—self-paced seminar

Minds That Matter—Teaching, Learning, and Mental Health

History of Inequality in the United States—self-paced seminar

Looking for the Basics?

Getting Started with Inclusive Teaching

Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)

FREE Inclusive Tools & Resources

One Inclusive Thing—One thing you can do to make your classrooms more inclusive

Inclusive Excellence Teaching Institute

Inclusive teaching involves a deliberate effort by faculty to create a learning environment that attends to and supports he needs of students with a variety of backgrounds, learning interests, and abilities. Inclusive pedagogical strategies shape the dynamics in teaching-learning spaces, affect individual's experiences in those spaces, and influence course and curriculum design. Inclusive teaching attends the range of identities in the classroom and helps all students feel equally valued.

The Inclusive Excellence Teaching Institute is specifically designed to provide Affiliate and Tenure-Track faculty at all ranks with a transformative space to learn and strategize about inclusive excellence in teaching and learning. The Institute will encourage an atmosphere of cultural humility through the examination of social identity and bias. Motivational frameworks, barriers to learning for diverse student learners and proactive strategies will also be introduced. Essential pedagogical approaches that promote an inclusive classroom environment will be modeled and explored. Through pre-assigned readings, access to group Bb site, and facilitated discussions, participants will begin the process of transforming their courses/curriculum, units and colleges.

Next Institute scheduled for Spring/Summer 2022!

THREE-DAY INTENSIVE INSTITUTE

Coming Spring/Summer 2022!

NCFDD Webinars on Race & Diversity

The NCFDD virtual mentoring program is an independent online professional development training, and mentoring community dedicated to supporting successful career transitions. Graduate students, faculty at all ranks and career stages, unit heads, administrators, and staff can activate their personal accounts by following the steps outlined below.

Go to www.facultydiversity.org/join
Under "Select Your Institution," choose "Grand Valley State University"
Select "Activate my Membership"
Complete the registration form using your GVSU email address
Check your GVSU email account to find a confirmation/welcome email. Click "Activate Account" in the email.

Your membership allows you to access tools to increase research and writing productivity and improve work-life balance. Some of these tools include:

The weekly Monday Motivator
Monthly Core Curriculum Webinars
Monthly Guest Expert and Multi-Week Course Trainings
Access to the 14-Day Writing Challenge each semester
Access to the Dissertation Success Curriculum for advanced graduate students
And more!

Please contact Dana Munk (munkd@gvsu.edu) if you have questions or concerns.

Download the NCFDD Flyer

Visit our NCFDD Webpage

NCFDD Recorded Webinars & Courses Focused on Race and Diversity

Turning Chutes into Ladders for Women Faculty: A Roadmap to Equity in Academia

Turning Chutes into Ladders for Women Faculty: A Roadmap to Equity in Academia
Facilitated by Michelle Cardel, PhD
Originally held on January 26, 2021—recording available for viewing!

Gender inequities remain pervasive in academia. The COVID19 pandemic has only magnified these inequities. This webinar will focus on the barriers and facilitators to gender equity in academia and highlights actionable strategies for institutions to implement to improve gender equity.

Access the recorded Turning Chutes into Ladders for Women Faculty webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Bracing for and Embracing the Fall as a Blkademic

Bracing for and Embracing the Fall as a Blkademic
Facilitated by Della Mosely, PhD
Originally held on September 14, 2020—recording available for viewing!

Recognizing the unique vulnerabilities Black academics (Blkademics) are facing in the current sociopolitical and campus climate, this interactive webinar will provide attendees with practical strategies to help them as they begin the fall semester. By increasing awareness, reflecting on holistic wellness needs, and getting clear on the strategies that resonate on a personal level, Blkademics will better be able to brace for and potentially embrace the semester ahead after attending this NCFDD webinar. Grounded in counseling and prevention psychology, Black feminism, and solution-focused theories, this webinar will offer Blkademics empirically-grounded and culturally-relevant strategies for surviving and being well as an academic today.

Access the recorded Bracing for and Embracing the Fall as a Blkademic webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Developing Anti-Oppressive Communities: Supporting Black Students and Mentees

Developing Anti-Oppressive Communities: Supporting Black Students and Mentees
Facilitated by Wanda Swan
Originally held on August 18, 2020—recording available for viewing!

This webinar will provide attendees with opportunities to identify and reflect on their privileges and biases and how these impact their ability to effectively serve as teachers and scholars. The presenter will discuss strategies for identifying and combating anti-Black racism in classrooms and research groups, how to most effectively support Black students and colleagues, and how to proactively contribute to diverse and inclusive campus communities, whether those be classrooms, research teams, labs, or committees. The presenter will also address how the unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn and the recent racist killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery impact black research assistants and postdocs and the role of faculty and PIs in supporting Black mentees during the present historical moment.

Access the recorded Developing Anti-Oppressive Communities webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

How to Challenge Race and Gender Bias in Student Evaluations

How to Challenge Race and Gender Bias in Student Evaluations
Facilitated by Bedelia Richards, PhD
Originally held on March 24, 2020—recording available for viewing!

Studies consistently show that student evaluations are biased against women faculty and faculty of color. Yet, higher education institutions continue to lean heavily on students’ evaluations of teaching for hiring and promotion decisions. This webinar is designed for faculty and administrators to better understand how student biases become transformed into institutional inequalities based on race and gender. The webinar provides administrators and faculty in leadership positions with a range of potential solutions for eliminating or minimizing the negative impacts of biased student evaluations. Recognizing that institutional change takes time, however, the webinar also provides strategies for empowering women faculty and faculty of color on how to advocate for themselves, particularly in situations where they are not being fully supported.

Access the recorded How to Challenge Race and Gender Bias in Student Evaluations webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Micro-Aggressions, Micro-Resistance, and Ally Development in the Academy

Micro-Aggressions, Micro-Resistance, and Ally Development in the Academy
Facilitated by Cynthia Ganote, Ph.D., Saint Mary’s College, Floyd Cheung, Ph.D., Smith College, and Tasha Souza, Ph.D., Boise State University
Originally held on April 7, 2016—recording available for viewing!

We often discuss ways to lead difficult dialogues amongst our students, and even ways to serve as allies to students experiencing classroom-based micro-aggressions. However, what do we do when we witness colleagues who are the targets of micro-aggressions?

This webinar examines ways in which micro-aggressions particularly impact women, faculty and staff of color, and LGBTQ faculty and staff in our institutions. In response, we can practice forms of micro-resistance and ally behaviors when we see our colleagues targeted, or when we ourselves are targeted. This focus on empowerment allows us to take action in our local environments, thereby lessening the impact upon colleagues and ourselves when micro-aggressions occur.

Dr. Cynthia Ganote is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Saint Mary’s College of California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her research focuses on race, class, gender, and sexual inequalities; feminist methods (including grounded theory and feminist in-depth interviews); critical and feminist pedagogies; and on approaches to community-based research. Currently, she is writing a book entitled Diverse Faculty, Re-Shaping the Professoriate.

Dr. Floyd Cheung directs the Sherrerd Center for Teaching and Learning and teaches English language and literature and American studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He is also a member of the Five College Asian/Pacific/American Studies Certificate Program, for which he served as the founding chair. He has edited books and published articles on Asian American literature from 1887 to the present.

Dr. Tasha Souza is the Associate Director for the Center for Teaching and Learning and Professor of Communication at Boise State University. Most recently, she was the Faculty Associate for Inclusive Excellence for Humboldt State University and a Fulbright scholar at the University of the West Indies in Barbados. She is a consultant on communication and pedagogy and has published in such areas as difficult dialogues in the classroom, discussion-based teaching, instructional communication, and intercultural conflict.

Access the recorded Micro-Aggressions, Micro-Resistance, and Ally Development in the Academy webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

(In)Civility in Academic Spaces

(In)Civility in Academic Spaces
Facilitated by Adeline Koh, PhD
Originally held on March 23, 2016—recording available for viewing!

The topic of (in)civility in public academic spaces has become extremely important, particularly in the wake of the Steven Salaita case, in which Salaita was denied a job he had been hired before because of his anti-Israeli foreign policy tweets. How should junior academics plan to walk the difficult tightrope between participating ethically in public social media spaces, and simultaneous passing through the difficult challenges of the tenure track? In this webinar, Koh will analyze the landscape of public academic spaces through social media, the necessity of participating in these spaces, and caveats and strategies to keep in mind.

Access the recorded (In)Civility in Academic Spaces webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Addressing Incivility in the Classroom: Effective Strategies for Faculty

Addressing Incivility in the Classroom: Effective Strategies for Faculty
Facilitated by Chavella Pittman, PhD
Originally held on February 16, 2016—recording available for viewing!

Classroom incivility refers to any student behaviors that disrupt the learning environment. They can range from texting in class to outright intimidation or threats. Regardless of the severity of the classroom incivility, research suggests they are on the rise. Unfortunately, faculty may not be prepared to deal with them. This is particularly troubling for marginalized faculty who are more frequently the targets of student incivility.

In this webinar, you will learn about faculty’s experiences with student incivility, especially the experiences of faculty with marginalized identities (e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation). You will also learn about the potential consequences for faculty of unchecked classroom incivilities. Most importantly, this webinar will teach you strategies you can use - both inside and outside of the classroom - to address these problematic student behaviors.

Access the recorded Addressing Incivility in the Classroom webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Disability and Living/Working in the Academy

Disability and Living/Working in the Academy
Facilitated by Stephanie Kerschbaum, PhD
Originally held on January 26, 2015—recording available for viewing!

Living and working with a disability in academia is a common occurrence, particularly given the ways that academia itself is an environment that can exacerbate or bring out disabling conditions in many people. In this workshop, Stephanie L. Kerschbaum will suggest ways that academic environments can become more hospitable towards disability as well as how academics can work interdependently to enact accessible moves and procedures. Specific topics discussed will include legal obligations and expectations around accommodation and why these are important but insufficient for enacting broad accessibility, the ways that “universal design” might apply to academic environments, and means for cultivating communication around access.

Access the recorded Disability and Living/Working in the Academy webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Presumed Incompetent: Race, Gender, and Class in Academia

Presumed Incompetent: Race, Gender, and Class in Academia
Facilitated by Carmen Gonzalez, JD
Originally held on August 5, 2013—recording available for viewing!

How do race and gender stereotypes affect perceptions of competence in the academic workplace?
Why do academics from the working class feel pressure to "pass" as middle or upper class?
Why should the growing corporatization of academia be of particular concern to women of color?

What can be done to increase the hiring, tenure, promotion, retention and inclusion of women of color and other underrepresented groups?

Despite academia's professed commitment to meritocracy and diversity, female faculty of color continue to be underrepresented in the nation's colleges and universities. The problem is particularly glaring because thirty percent of the nation's students are of color, and the next generation will be majority minority.

This workshop examines the obstacles that female faculty of color encounter on the road to tenure and beyond, and provides strategies that can be used by women of color, by allies, and by academic leaders to address institutionalized bias and to create a more equitable and inclusive campus environment.

Access the recorded Presumed Incompetent: Race, Gender and Class in Academia webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Successful Strategies for Faculty Diversity: Valuing Faculty Work that Promotes Equity

Successful Strategies for Faculty Diversity: Valuing Faculty Work that Promotes Equity
Facilitated by Sheila O’Rourke, JD
Originally held on February 26, 2013—recording available for viewing!

For those of us who care about diversity in higher education - faculty, administrators, diversity officers and advocates - increasing diversity among our faculty is one of our greatest challenges. This workshop explores effective strategies for promoting faculty diversity with a focus on rewarding faculty for teaching, conducting research and making service contributions that promote the institutional commitment to equity and diversity. Topics include:

Valuing contributions to diversity in faculty searches and hiring
Recognizing diversity work in faculty merit and promotion reviews
Allocating resources to create incentives for diversity work
Using data strategically to make the case for faculty diversity

The session refers to new policies and program at the University of California as case examples, and explores how each strategy can be adapted for colleges and universities, large and small; public and private. The session addresses legal issues that impact faculty diversity programs and provides guidelines for avoiding legal challenges to effective diversity efforts.

Access the recorded Successful Strategies for Faculty Diversity webinar online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Cultivating Compassion & Collectivism: A Multi-Week Course to Facilitate Health from Racial Trauma

Cultivating Compassion & Collectivism: A Multi-Week Course to Facilitate Health from Racial Trauma
Facilitated by Della Mosley, PhD
Originally held on February 10, 2021—recording available for viewing!

Racial trauma has many academics oscillating between fight, flight, and freeze responses. We are fighting on committees and in our classrooms, debating how or if we should stay in harmful environments, and finding ourselves stuck as we hold our own and our community's pain. In this two-part workshop series, Dr. Della will describe the connection between trauma, healing, compassion, and collectivism. She will also introduce and guide participants through practices that help cultivate compassion and collectivism as a means to help facilitate healing from racial trauma.

This multi-week course includes 3 one-hour recording webinars.

Access the recorded Cultivating Compassion & Collectivism webinars online with your NCFDD institutional membership. Haven’t activated your NCFDD institutional membership yet? Visit our Inclusive Excellence webpage for information on how to activate this FREE and superb membership.

Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom edX Course

NEW DELIVERY FORMAT—FREE Self-Paced Course

Through real stories, reflection, and key research, learn how to create and sustain inclusive, student-centered learning environments.

U.S.–based and higher education-centered, this is a five-module, self-paced course that offers an inclusive teaching framework with multiple entry points for reflection and exploration of the research on learning and diversity. Anchored in the lived experiences of students and instructors, including your own, we invite you to explore strategies for inclusive course design, student-centered pedagogical practices, facilitating learning across difference, and change efforts that support student engagement, achievement, and belongingness. Come with a course of your own in mind, and design for inclusion as you make your way through Teaching & Learning in the Diverse Classroom.

You will explore:

Your formative experiences as a learner, teacher, and member of your discipline
Strategies and exercises helpful in communicating effectively, facilitating discussion, and modeling inclusivity when unexpected issues arise
Research, frameworks, and models that help us understand why and how diversity and inclusion matter in teaching and learning

Learn more and register at the edX Teaching & Learning in the Diverse Classroom webpage

History of Structural Inequality in the U.S. (Self-paced Course)

The Robert and Mary Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center invites all faculty to consider enrollment in a self-paced online learning opportunity meant to expand knowledge regarding structural inequality in the United States. This innovative short course comprises faculty-led video presentations, resources and strategies and personal reflection.

Those who enroll and participate in the series will:

increase their understanding of the history of structural inequality in the U.S.
gain tools for teaching about inequalities related to topics in the course
identify interdisciplinary connections to their course content and disciplinary expertise
gain skills in inclusive teaching practices
have the opportunity to earn a digital badge

Topics covered in this series include:

History of Inequality for African Americans in the U.S.
History of Inequality for Asian Americans in the U.S.
History of Genocide and Structural Inequality for Native Americans in the U.S.
History of Inequality for Latino Americans in the U.S.
History of Inequality for LGTB Identities in the U.S.
History of Inequality Related to Immigration to the U.S.
History of Religious Oppression in the U.S.
History of Inequality for Women in the U.S.
Identity Based Privilege in the U.S.
Income Inequality in the U.S.

This series is housed on an Blackboard site. To enroll in the course and access the online materials, please email the Pew FTLC (pewftlc@gvsu.edu).

History of Inequality Series Digital Badge

SELF-PACED COURSE

Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)

START WITH AN INVENTORY OF WHERE YOU ARE NOW

The intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI®) assesses intercultural competence—the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. Intercultural competence reflects the degree to which cultural differences and commonalities in values, expectations, beliefs, and practices are effectively bridged, an inclusive environment is achieved, and specific differences that exist in an organization or institution are addressed from a "mutual adaptation" perspective. Success in achieving goals is better served when individuals can more deeply understand culturally-learned differences, recognize commonalities between self and others, and act on this increased insight in culturally appropriate ways that facilitate goal accomplishment among diverse individuals and groups.

The Intercultural Development Inventory is a 50-item questionnaire available online that can be completed in 15–20 minutes. The IDI Individual and Group Profile Report presents information about how individuals and organizations make sense of and respond to cultural differences and commonalities. The IDI can be integrated into curriculum design, assessment, professional development, and research. Cost to complete the survey is $18 per faculty member and $12 per student.

Please contact Dana Munk (munkd@gvsu.edu) for an IDI consult. Learn more by visiting the Intercultural Development Inventory webpage.

20 Minute Mentor Commons Inclusive Excellence Online Workshops

The 20–minute mentor commons are video-based programs designed to answer specific questions related to teaching and learning. They deliver actionable insights in highly focused 20–minute presentations designed to fit busy schedules. Below is a list of inclusive-excellence-focused topics that caught our eye.

Please contact the Pew FTLC (pewftlc@gvsu.edu) to learn how to access this amazing resource.

GOT 20 MINUTES?

2020-2021 Twenty Minute Mentor Commons Inclusive Excellence Online Workshops

What Culturally Responsive Teaching Techniques Can I Use to Improve Learning?

WHAT CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES CAN I USE TO IMPROVE LEARNING?

This 20-minute program is designed to teach participants how multiculturalism impacts the classroom in a variety of ways with a variety of learning outcomes. Instructors learn to account for the multitude of cultures in the classroom by teaching in a culturally responsive way that ensures that all students have the same opportunity to learn.