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I'm up next. Make sure you're also following @AENickelsPhD thread! #PAScholarStrike #ScholarStrike https://twitter.com/SeanMcC_PA/status/1303708845206900745
Hi everyone! Thanks for joining me for the next hour while I talk about diversifying your syllabus. I hope you’ll join in and add to our conversation.
In case you can’t stay for the whole time, let me tell you the four things I hope you get out of this hour. 1. If you don’t have BIPOC authors on your syllabus and don’t know any to add, you don’t know the literature. #PAScholarStrike #ScholarStrike
2. Racial justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion shouldn’t just be one week, unit, or course. It should be integrated throughout your courses and your program's curriculum.
3. Yes, this is hard work. But your students and the field will be better off because of it. Put in the work.
4. There are resources to help with this work. I'll offer some. The other threads yesterday and today have sooo many more fantastic resources as well. Archive them so you can return to them later.
Let’s start with point 1: If you don’t have BIPOC authors on your syllabus and don’t know any to add, you don’t know the literature. This is a pedagogical hill I'm willing to die on. #PAScholarStrike #ScholarStrike
There are many brilliant, insightful BIPOC scholars doing important research in public administration. Their research is in all subfields, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t be citing and teaching them.
This isn’t to say that academia and public administration are sufficiently diverse. They aren’t. A white supremacist culture and structural racism make it difficult for scholars of color to enter the academy and to succeed.
See, for example, @NajmahThomas article in @JPAEJournal "In the service of social equity: Leveraging the experiences of African American women professors" https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15236803.2018.1565041#.X1jw6l59Q88.twitter
My point is, even if public administration and academia in general has a DEI problem, that doesn’t excuse you from excluding BIPOC authors from your syllabus. #PAScholarStrike #ScholarStrike
I see three potential objections to this point. 1. The classic authors were White. I have to teach the classics. 2. I don’t see color. I choose quality research. 3. This is hard.
To answer the last one first, yes it is hard, but it is essential that we all do this work. More on that later.
Going back to objection 1: we’ve been told the “classic” authors are White. But who decides what a classic is? It’s probably the authors that we all read in our own MPA/PhD coursework. So why not change who we read? Disrupt groupthink.
Many scholars have written convincingly about how the traditional narrative of public administration – think Wilson, Taylor, Gulick, Waldo, etc. – is just one version of what was actually happening as the field developed. See @SeanMcC_PA thread yesterday for more on this.
Even if you still want to teach, for example, Wilson, you can incorporate social equity and racial justice in that lesson. Yesterday there were several suggestions about this in the #PAScholarStrike #ScholarStrike discussions.
One of my favorites is the Perspectives on Politics symposium on the controversy over Woodrow Wilson’s legacy: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/issue/E22B3CFA31DCD4B646182BFA680E1347
Combine your discussion of Wilson with what BIPOC scholars and thinkers then were saying and what they are now saying about Wilson and the development of the field.
On potential objection 2, colorblindness, see @SeanMcC_PA thread (as well as others) on why this is so dangerous. Let me just be clear – I’m not asking you to sacrifice quality. BIPOC scholars write high-quality research. You won’t be sacrificing anything.
In fact, I'm calling on you to INCREASE the quality of your syllabus.
If you’re choosing between two great articles, assign the one by the BIPOC author. You’re teaching important, high-quality material and making your syllabus more diverse. A win-win for your students (and the field).
I’ll be providing some resources to help you with this work in a little while.
I want to move on to my second point – racial justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion need to be incorporated throughout your syllabus, as well as your program's curriculum.
Yes, if you don’t have these issues anywhere in your syllabus, by all means, add a week. I'm asking you to do that plus more.
Just like BIPOC authors write in all subfields of public administration, DEI and racial justice is part of each subfield.
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on this. @academicpiracy did a thread on budgeting and finance, @DocDantzler talked about the built environment, @DrNate1906 discussed nonprofits, @DBearfield talked about local government leaders, @HannahLebovits had a thread on methods
@AENickelsPhD has a thread right now on community engagement, @stephaniepuello will be talking about organizations in a half hour, @MeghanWilson will write about planners. There's so much great information in the #PAScholarStrike!
I want to give you an example from my own #IntrotoPA course. Inspired by @SheRambl. Make sure you check out her thread on discussing racial justice in your intro class at 1pm EST. I’m having my students read parts of the #1619Project.
This week I had my students read @nhannahjones article "The idea of America". https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html I then asked them to write on our class discussion board what the essay means for public administration and public service.
Was I worried about having this conversation? Absolutely. It’s only the third week of classes, and they’ve only seen each other via zoom for a few hours. We don’t yet have the rapport and trust that comes throughout the semester.
But I felt I couldn’t wait to have this conversation until later in the semester. I can’t pretend that my course is divorced from the world around us and from current events.
You know what? The conversation has been incredible. The responses were thoughtful, honest, and insightful. The students engaged with each other. They gently probed each other to expand their points, and constructively challenged each other’s interpretations.
I learned a lot. I teared up when I read that students were sharing the essay with others.
As an aside, have I mentioned lately how we have the best students @CSU_Urban ? Shout out to my #IntrotoPA students.
Hopefully, I’ve now set the stage so that students expect racial justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion to be a regular part of our course.
We’ll be reading other #1619Project essays throughout the semester.
We'll also be reading Mohamad Alkadry (sorry, I can't find the twitter handle right now) and @urbanrambl_ @patheory Aloofness or Dirty Hands? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2753/ATP1084-1806320403#.X1j3LDfo-EA.twitter
And we'll be using race and policing to frame part of our discussion on representative bureaucracy.
Yes, I have a social equity week. We’re reading @VCUWilderDean book "Race and Social Equity: A Nervous Area of Government" https://www.amazon.com/Race-Social-Equity-Nervous-Government/dp/0765637197/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PGUGZZU78IPC&dchild=1&keywords=race+and+social+equity+a+nervous+area+of+government&qid=1599666028&sprefix=race+nervous+%2Caps%2C153&sr=8-1. Seriously, if you haven’t read that book, read it now.
This brings me to my third point: this is hard work. It was hard to diversify my syllabus, and I know I still have a lot of work to do. This is a process that is never ending.
However, what is taught in classes becomes part of the cannon, and is more likely to be cited and taught in the future. That means this work is essential for changing the field.
By doing this work, you are giving your students a better foundation to be good public servants. You are helping them understand how DEI are infused in all aspects of public administration. You are showing them that people that look like them belong in this field.
At the end of the day, I’d rather my students learn those two things than remember the difference between theory A and theory B.
This semester, I went through and wrote down the race and gender of each author in my syllabus. I made some assumptions based on pictures and names if I did not know the scholars myself, so I’m sure I made some miss-categorizations.
I noticed some weeks I didn’t have any BIPOC scholars, so I added some. I kept working on my syllabus until it was about 32 percent BIPOC and 50 percent female authors. Not perfect, but better than it was. As I said, I still have work to do.
Yes, this takes time, but it is also really insightful.
It is hard work. It is hard work for me, and I have many privileges that other instructors do not have. So let me offer you some resources.
Oh no, starting to run out of time!
First of all, twitter. Go follow those brilliant BIPOC scholars. The people doing this teach-in are a great place to start, although there are many, many more. Share articles. Save and read articles others share.
Another resource is the @awparocks @wps diversity tool: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E-IRtMCM0UVOdcSkb3HJ_9nU35az-zXBlpXPOVqEusY/edit#gid=0. You can download the database and sort by keyword.
While you’re at it, why not add other sources to it? You can do that here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4kJ4dpb-4QWgArRsNsawjgAhuzsCZLKHRpcf8lNw4pVfHZA/viewform
Whoops, I missed @citeblackwomen
Next, @JadeBerryJames ' KnowledgeBase is another fantastic resource. https://selc.wordpress.ncsu.edu/knowledge-base/ The categories make it easy to find the type of article you want. I used it this summer when revising my #IntrotoPA syllabus.
Databases like @awparocks @womenalsoknow list female scholars. Use them to make sure you have female BIPOC scholars on your syllabus.
Looking for more information? Check out pedagogy journals like @jpaejournal and Teaching Public Administration (no twitter?). Join sections like @ASPA_DSJ @aspaSPAE
One last resource: check out the @JPAEJournal symposium on cultural competency guest edited by @urbanrambl_ https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/upae20/24/4
My hour is almost up. Thank you for joining me. A huge thanks to all the #PAScholarStrike organizers for including me. I’ve learned so much these last two days, and am looking forward to the rest of the threads today.
I'm off to see what @AENickelsPhD talked about in her thread.
Up next is @stephaniepuello talking about why DEI is an important consideration within PA and organizations.
