Race and Curriculum Revision Project

While the U.S. is more racially open and culturally diverse than at any other time in its history, intolerance and marginalization—often around issues of race, culture and difference—continue to exist. This is punctuated in university settings where students of color find more access to opportunity, yet encounter socially and intellectually non-inclusive environments. UT-Austin stands at the forefront of concerns around race and equity, most recently with the Fisher decision and the current state lawsuit against UT-Austin regarding race discrimination in admissions. The university also holds the bold mission of changing the world. If we are to create the next generation of change agents, we must cultivate students that are racially and culturally literate. The goal of this project is to create learning communities of university instructors that seek to modify or create courses that address race and culture from an asset-based standpoint. By asset-based, I mean approaching race from a standpoint that values the knowledge, experiences and perspectives of people of color, rather than rendering them as deficient or lacking. For three semesters (FALL 2017; SPRING 2018; FALL 2018) I will convene three different learning communities of instructors comprised of instructors(tenured, tenure-track, lecturers, clinical instructors, adjunct instructors)and/or instructor/TA groups drawn from the College of Education, and eventually other Colleges and units at UT-Austin.