兔子先生传媒文化作品

At the opening of Tuesday鈥檚 Diversity and Inclusion Summit, there was a great reminder on the need for the university to listen to its students.

Ruth Baheta, a third-year anthropology student and a panelist at the summit鈥檚 opening session, told the audience that 兔子先生传媒文化作品 must work harder to understand the experience of students of color and 鈥渃lose the gap of knowledge between students and those people [at the university] who are working on diversity.鈥�

The message was clear: Listen more carefully to everyone involved in the university鈥檚 diversity and inclusion efforts, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Listen, in particular, to the students you鈥檙e trying to help, and then prove to them you鈥檙e listening. Finally, form ideas and solutions based upon what your listening yields: a truer sense of听how people actually experience the university.

That is the kind of listening we鈥檙e trying to do in the Academic Futures process. In our facilitated, themed conversations and our department-based and faculty forum meetings, it has yielded some candid and dramatic results.

In several of the themed conversations, we鈥檝e heard a clear call for developing a more comprehensive approach to education regardless of modality. People described the need for developing an infrastructure that currently doesn鈥檛 exist to support flipped or hybrid coursework听and听the need for a comprehensive approach to online education, rooted in research-based best practices and moving in a defined direction.

At the heart of these conversations is the notion that we, as a university community, need to value and flexibly support faculty and staff to do the teaching they do with all of the needed tools at their disposal, including technology. Additionally, our educators want to be authentically recognized for their teaching excellence, both within our community and as part of their promotion and tenure.

Another forceful idea we鈥檝e heard clearly in the facilitated conversations: Match the university鈥檚 desires to increase students鈥� learning experiential opportunities to the university鈥檚 need to improve interactions with our supportive external communities.听We need to do more to connect our teaching and research to building and supporting community, and our students can help.

In unit and department-based conversations, our faculty have been equally straightforward in wanting to air and discuss the key questions that inform their experience at the university: How can we strengthen faculty governance?听Should we have a campuswide core curriculum?听Should we reorganize our academic structure, say, by eliminating majors or rethinking departments?听Are our criteria for annual merit increases and tenure and promotion the right ones?

So, whether it鈥檚 the Diversity and Inclusion Summit that encourages speaking truth to power (and then drawing from the power of experience to create change), or a visioning process like Academic Futures that facilitates a conversation about aspirations and removing barriers to them, we鈥檝e been reminded of the need for the university to listen first, then take action on what it hears.

And as the provost noted in his column on Tuesday, this listening鈥攁nd the actions that emerge from it鈥攚ill form an exciting new reality moving ahead.听

Jeff Cox,
Vice Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Faculty Affairs
Convener of the Academic Futures Campus Conversation

Emily CoBabe-Ammann,
Director of Strategic Projects for the Research & Innovation Office
Facilitator of the Academic Futures Campus Conversation