by Ilene Dawn (Ida) Alexander <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m drawn to ALT-C as an academic space where I can wear all the hats: teaching consultant, learning designer, academic technologist, teacher with grads and undergrads, inclusion and accessibility mentor, co-creator of courses and publications. And as someone who\u2019s been wearing these many hats for 40 years while participating in creating professional roles that bear these titles, I\u2019m finding it appropriate that the #altc23 conference is the last academic conference that I\u2019ll attend as an official university employee. Across these September days together, we\u2019ll have multiple opportunities to share \u201chow we got here\u201d stories, experiences in building careers, and reflections on practices we\u2019ve shaped. We\u2019ll do this in a space where what unfolds will shape our next thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I noted in an earlier #altc23 blogpost<\/a>, a PhD school colleague conducted a professional learning disabilities assessment just after my oral exams, and offered me a diagnosis of dyspraxia<\/a>. With Carol\u2019s guidance, I began to understand why I struggled as a learner, as a teacher who preferred discussions over lectures, and as a human moving about the world in less than graceful ways. She named this an \u2018invisible\u2019 rather than \u2018hidden\u2019 disability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During that same semester, one of my students – \u201cBrian,\u201d a high profile athlete in a \u201cred shirt\u201d transfer semester that kept him eligible for playing the next year – was instructed by the football coaching staff to hide his learning disabilities from his teachers, and advised by athletic program tutors to not make<\/strong> the essay revisions offered by his peers and instructor, advising him to \u201cjust take the C and move on.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As spring term students in a traditionally fall term course, my students were all in a catch-up mode and stood outside the profile of a midwestern Research One university student – typically white, middle class, and just graduated from a well-resourced high school. Instead, this cohort demographically included mainly first-generation, of color, mature, queer, and\/or transfer students with wide-ranging talents and interests. Here they met students like themselves, and actively worked to support and advocate for each other. In this atmosphere, I learned about my student athlete\u2019s learning disability from another student athlete classmate who believed that we could support his friend, and that I could advocate for change in tutors\u2019 practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a white woman teaching courses and conducting peer professional development programming as a graduate\/PGR student I built on anti-racist, critical, feminist, and learning-centered pedagogies in a teaching department, the inclusive pedagogical experiences and bodymind insights I brought as a first generation university student and instructor were valued. Their support mattered as a counterbalance to my neoliberal academic department, and as a model for my work with students.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n These enacted experiences of support and advocacy mattered to my students. And they informed my career choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Story 1: I grew comfortable with all these hats after pulling myself out of the running for tenure track teaching positions at midwest US universities so that I could support my parents navigating health challenges. I sought out a mentor co-directing the then-new University of Minnesota \u201cCenter for Teaching and Learning Services,\u201d who soon put many-hatted me forward as a candidate for a post working with graduate students taking courses in a future faculty program akin to a PGcert in higher education program. In this unit, my experience in launching computer-based classrooms, co-creating inclusive teaching programs for teaching staff, and building accessible courses became a foundation for collaborating with peers working in academic technology, library, student support, learning center, campus diversity, and disability access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Story 2: With that move, I realised the powerful impact of being primarily a mentor, wearing all the hats in future faculty courses enrolling 50-75 participants each term, and leading programming for a larger number of faculty members. Those 200 humans worked with their own 200 academic colleagues and students. As I write today, I feel keenly that I honour (1) Carol and Brian by practicing what I learned with each of them: that we all need multiple mentors<\/a> as part of navigating academic spaces, and (2) my graduate teaching mentors: learning anew by valuing the inclusive pedagogical experiences and bodymind insights I am learning because of the future and current faculty who enrich this career I, like others, have invented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Foundations: I teach in the spirit of Highlander Folk School, an interracial, intercultural, and intergenerational popular education centre founded in rural Appalachia in 1932 that played a critical role in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. There, Septima Clark and Myles Horton practiced a \u201ctwo-eyed\u201d facilitation approach: first seeing participants \u201cas they are\u201d in order to understand where they are coming from, then to imagine with participants \u201cwhere they might be\u201d in returning to work within their local communities. As veteran co-creators of learning spaces, Horton and Clark \u201cremained committed to continually refining their pedagogies. They knew that striking the right balance between the presentation of material and student-driven discussion was a profound challenge – especially when the goal was to empower students to confront an oppressive social order\u201d (Nico Slate, 2022, open access article as pdf<\/a>). Refining our pedagogies – all that\u2019s under our hats – is<\/em> crucial.<\/p>\n\n\n\nShaping Careers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Foundational Practices<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n