Track 1: Dichotomies in a STEM Course: How They Might Be Working Against Your Inclusive Strategies

Presentation took place May 13, 2021; presentations will be made available via WarpWire to members of the University of Dayton community in early June

Fostering Hope in Sustainability Education: Three Techniques

Our population, particularly women and young people, is facing eco-anxiety to the point where it can impact how they function in daily life. While anxiety is a reasonable response to the threat of climate change, it becomes counterproductive when people feel paralyzed and unable to take action. We offer hope as a partial solution to addressing this anxiety. This workshop will demonstrate three techniques that we have found helpful to moving students toward hope and agency. We will look at one technique that allows students to name their emotions and then describe how that emotion can both hinder and promote action. The next technique asks students to identify what they are good at, what the world needs, and what brings them joy. The last question of joy allows the students to see that there is still space in the world for joy even while facing significant challenges. It asks students to create positive scenarios of what they want the world to look like in the future and using backward design to see how we can realistically address the impacts of climate change. This allows the students to construct more positive yet feasible futures than what they may otherwise imagine

Diversity and Social Justice Institutional Learning Goals

Kennedy Union 310 During the summer of 2019, the Common Academic Program, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the College of Arts and Sciences convened a group of transdisciplinary faculty and staff to serve as Diversity and Social Justice Curriculum Fellows. As a group, our goal was to provide clarity regarding the Diversity and Social Justice Component of the Common Academic Program specifically, and the larger Institutional Learning Goals (ILGs) generally, that are connected to the experiences of all undergraduate students at this university. We would like to share the work we completed over the summer, and encourage attendees to join us in providing input on their experience with the Diversity and Social Justice CAP component and the Diversity Institutional Learning Goal. Incorporating the understanding and pursuit of diversity and social justice both curricularly and co-curricularly we will be able to better support our mission to educate the whole person