16 Actualizing Our Promise to Diversity and Inclusion

Since completing my third-year review, I have continued to participate actively in my department and in the two interdisciplinary programs towards which I have gravitated from the very beginning (GWSS and PJCS). During the past year, I have been a library liaison for history, have served on awards committees for GWSS, and have helped revise the curriculum for PJCS. After two years of planning meetings, it was also amazing to see Nobel 2017 on Reproductive Technologies come to fruition. I truly enjoyed working together with fellow faculty members to decide the list of speakers, reimagine the format of the conference, develop course material to connect our courses to the conference more explicitly, and apply for a grant to bring together sciences and humanities in the classroom around reproductive technologies. I also liked leading one of the student reading groups and getting to know students who don’t usually take my courses. Yet the conference surpassed any of my expectations. It was intellectually stimulating and energizing, but it also gave me an opportunity to get to know better Ruha Benjamin, the speaker I hosted. She has been incredibly generous with our students, even agreeing to Skype with our IDS class this past spring, and with me. I really appreciated her suggestions and book recommendations as I was working on the course I taught with Professor Laura Burrack.

I have invested most of my energy in continuing to work on fostering diversity and inclusion at Gustavus in and outside the classroom. To this end, I agreed to serve on the search committee for the new Diversity Center Director and decided to run for the position on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Both experiences have shown me the opportunities and challenges our institution faces as we work on creating an inclusive and diverse environment, but I take pride in being part of a larger push to actualize what we promise in our Gustavus Acts. This represents a moral imperative for me, especially considering the climate of hostility that minorities face currently in the United States.

Looking ahead, I am excited to serve as the new Excellence in Teaching Faculty Associate for the John S. Kendall Center for Engaged Learning. I really enjoyed thinking through and putting together the calendar for the 2018-2019 series of teachers talking. It was a great opportunity to consider the amazing things my colleagues are doing in the classroom and talk with several of the administrators on campus who help us do our job better. I also decided to launch a new event. Since we are an institution of teacher scholars, I decided it would be important for our faculty to have an opportunity to work on their teaching in a collegial and stimulating environment. Working with Julie Bartley, the Kendall Center will hold its first teaching retreat next January where faculty will be able to work on writing, revising, or rethinking an aspect of one of their courses. I look forward to seeing what the retreat will produce!

By far the most rewarding service experience of this past year was my work as a member of the Provost Search Committee. I was truly honored that my colleagues elected me to the committee, and I took my responsibility very seriously. Despite the intensity of the process, I loved serving on this committee because it allowed me to see firsthand how excited people are about working at Gustavus and hear how bright our future looks to outsiders looking in. It was also great to get to know some of my colleagues better and work with people I had not had a chance to meet yet. After reading the feedback the committee received prior to making our final decision, I came away with a renewed commitment to continue working on diversity and inclusion on our campus and an interest in seeking to bridge different parts and people of the college.