The US Supreme Court’s June 29th decision regarding affirmative action in college admissions has raised concerns about the ability of universities to recruit the diverse student populations that are important to our missions, and that it presents challenges to our goals of supporting upward mobility for people and groups facing historic and systemic inequities. The impact of this decision on IU’s recruiting practices remains to be seen, and we look forward to hearing about the university’s next steps.
The CITL stands with the IU administration in its view that diverse perspectives and backgrounds are vital to creating strong learning environments. And we reiterate our commitment to ensuring that all IU students have the opportunities and support they need to succeed at this institution and beyond. To that end, we offer IU Bloomington instructors, staff, and department leaders the following support for pursuing inclusive excellence in teaching and learning. With our partners across campus, we can help you:
- Develop an “equity report” for your courses and programs, which can reveal achievement gaps between students from different backgrounds.
- Examine the systemic inequities that many of our students face—from those they bring with them to college, to those we inadvertently build into our courses, curricula, and policies.
- Redesign course structures, syllabi, and assignments to reduce barriers and present students with the academic support structures they need to succeed.
- Develop instructional approaches that promote inclusion and belonging in your classrooms.
- Develop assessment approaches that will indicate whether these new practices are improving student success, especially for our most vulnerable students.
- Incorporate student voices into all this work—gathering their input about the barriers they face in our courses and programs, getting their feedback on classroom teaching, and participating as partners in course redesign.
The CITL team does not have any control over who we bring into our university—we rely on our recruiting and admissions colleagues to do that important work—but we can certainly help you ensure that all students have the opportunity and support they need to succeed once they are here.
Please reach out to me if we can help you in our collective commitment to inclusive excellence.
Greg Siering
CITL Director
(#FirstGen)
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