A message from the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning

Featured Events

Nationally, students with disabilities represent 14% of college students and last year at Skidmore represented 15% of the student body. In order to provide access to the learning environment, common practice is to provide retrofit accommodations for individuals based on the disability. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the practice of designing teaching methodologies, curricular decisions, and assessment strategies to minimize the need for accommodations. Disability is often left out of conversations about diversity and inclusion however, the principles of UDL expands notions of inclusion and meets with diverse learning needs of all students.

The presentation will provide an overview of the principles of Universal Design and will include examples of ways in which we may make our classrooms, course materials, and assessment methods accessible and usable by all. The presentation will include time for discussion. Please bring with you questions you may have about student accommodations and how to make your classrooms, course materials, and assessment methods accessible for all. For more see our website.

A professor of history and international relations and a frequent public speaker, Kendi is a columnist at The Atlantic. He is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and The Black Campus Movement, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize.

For more information about the loosely-organized group committed to creating a more inclusive Skidmore, after logging into Skidmore Blogs please go to �About� on this blog.

"Working with Diverse Student Perspectives: When Discussions Get Difficult" with Kimberly Van Orman
February 25, Murray-Aikins Dining Hall, 2nd Floor

Thoughtful intellectual discussions are at the heart of learning in higher education, but in the current political and social moment many students struggle to manage their own and others' reactions when topics like immigration, trans rights, or gun policy become part of the discussion. Even when controversy is a planned part of the course, faculty may worry about discussions running away from them and need tools to help them lead the discussion productively. This session provides a framework for honoring students' emotional responses and strategies for managing difficult discussions, so that faculty can teach students how to slow down and learn from controversy.

In order to capture as many interested faculty as possible, this workshop will be offered at two different times on Tuesday, February 25 in the upper d-hall:

• 9:30-11:30 a.m.
• 2:30-4:30 p.m.
  
  

Please rsvp to Brooke Toma by Friday, Feb. 14. This event is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is co-sponsored by the CLTL.

Building an Inclusive Learning Environment: Making Digital Content Accessible Workshop with Aaron Kendall

Wednesday, February 26 from 12-1:30 p.m. in the Weller Room

Blackboard Ally is a standalone tool that works with most Learning Management Systems (LMS). Regardless of any potential future LMS migration (to Brightspace for example), we will continue to maintain our Blackboard Ally license.

Blackboard Ally is a plugin to our LMS that helps instructors make their digital course content more accessible to students, and build a more inclusive learning environment. This tool makes it easier for instructors to understand potential accessibility limitations with uploaded documents and images, as well as provide solutions to make them more accessible. It also automatically generates alternative accessible formats for students, including mp3, ePub, and tagged PDF.

In this workshop we will introduce the concept of digital accessibility and explore common barriers to accessibility with digital course content. Participants will explore the alternative

versions generated by Ally, and learn how they affect overall course accessibility. Participants will also learn to incorporate the feedback that Ally provides into best practices when creating and modifying commonly used files such as Microsoft Word documents and PDFs.

Featured Faculty/Staff

Aware of power dynamics present in any classroom, Prof. H. grades using a model of collaborative self-assessment and partners with CLTL student advisers to collect course feedback. This approach is rooted in Prof. H�s experience as an organizer in race and labor justice movements. She combines her interests in social movement organizing and democratic education as the co-host of �Nothing Never Happens: A Radical Pedagogy Podcast.� Find it on iTunes!

Her research is focused on the religious cultures of the Americas. She interprets this topic broadly, to encompass ritual practices and collective forms through which people organize their lives and articulate their values. Her first book, tentatively titled Liberated Market: On the Cultural Politics of Capitalist Humanitarianism, is about transnational �conscious capitalist� initiatives like fair trade, microfinance, and corporate social responsibility. She is also pursuing projects on the intellectual cultures of college policy debate competition and on the gendered history of U.S. civic education programs.

Raised in the mountains of east Tennessee, Prof. H. has lived and studied in the northeast for several years. This is her first semester at Skidmore, where she�ll primarily teach courses on the religious cultures of the Americas and on intersectional approaches to the study of religion. She is excited to learn and grow in this community, and she looks forward to the connections she will make here.

Featured CLTL Student

Student Voices

"While Skidmore preaches that it is committed to increasing diversity and fostering a welcoming environment for those within marginalized communities, it has yet to confront the reality of how members of the faculty, staff, and administration fail to interact with the student body in a way that produces such an environment. Everyone, at all levels of the college, could benefit from a richer education that�s tailored to understanding the needs of community members, specifically students of color who are often talked over in conversations, have their opinions invalidated, and must hide their authentic selves to make the white members of the community more comfortable. My hope for Skidmore is that it does what it preaches, not just in recruiting and accepting students from various backgrounds � although this is important � but also providing spaces, both mental and physical, for these students to grow into their best selves."

Other Events

• Scholarly and Creative Endeavors (SCE) Groups are ongoing Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays during the Spring. For more, see the website.
• Science Faculty Discussion Group meets on 2/10, 2/24, 3/16, 3/30, 4/13, and 4/27 at 4:15 p.m. in the Lucy Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212).

• Sign up for Cornell University MOOC: Teaching & Learning in the Diverse Classroom, February 17 � March 23. Online at: edX.org

• Pedagogy Cluster Applications (Round 5) are due on April 1.

News and Resources

• If you want to request use of the Weller Room, please use this form.
• Join the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.

Finally, my office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00 am � 12:00 noon or by appointment this semester. I welcome student, staff, and faculty visitors and input into how the CLTL can best serve you. 

Skidmore College

815 North Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
518-580-5000