Karma Chavez

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KARMA CHÁVEZ, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies (Department of Mexican American & Latina/o Studies) - 
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/mals/faculty/kc32638 Links to an external site.  

What does inclusive teaching mean to you?

I'm a little wary of the language of inclusion, because I'm always asking: included into what? If an existing system, say a university, is inherently built on white supremacy, then I'm less interested in inclusion, than I am in working to alter that structure. Having that said, I think the classroom can be one site of intervention in the white supremacy (not to mention that classism, ableism, sexism, and cis-heterosexism) of the university. So, in my classroom, I am always thinking about the person who enters the classroom with the least amount of systemic power. How can I orient the classroom around that person's needs and lived experiences? What kinds of pedagogy, policies, and teaching persona should I adopt in order for that person to thrive? I think it is only when our teaching is oriented in such a way that we can actually call our teaching "inclusive." It is my view, that if the most marginalized person in the classroom is having their needs met, then those with more structural power will also be having a profound educational experience, even if they don't (and they often won't) like it because they're used to their needs being the center of every classroom space.

Please give an example of what thinking inclusively looks like to you in your teaching or your work around campus.

One way to think about this is to think about what a course syllabus communicates to students. A colleague of mine who left Wisconsin at the same time I did, Sara Goldrick-Rab, put together a basic needs security syllabus, which is essentially language she adds to her syllabus that recognizes many students may be struggling to get their basic needs like housing and food met, and it supplies a list of resources that students can access. This kind of thing is really important, and when paired with a clear statement of support for disabled students and a clear process for getting formal (and maybe even informal) accommodations, a statement that talks about the importance of pronouns and chosen names, and one that insists on the importance of working to use non-sexist, non-sexist, and non-heteronormative language, a syllabus starts to send a clear message. In the humanities and social sciences, if that same syllabus then reflects commitment to diverse readings, which means a significant number by queer people, people of color and women; assignments that reflect diverse learning styles, and a celebration of different forms of knowledge (from lay to expert), this to me, starts to seem like inclusivity in the best meaning of that term.

A similar ethic can be applied to organizing meetings and events around campus as well.