Register Now for FDEC Day, Monday, Dec. 14, noon to 2 p.m.

Registrations are now open for our Fall 2020 FDEC Day, which will take place on Monday, December 14, for noon to 2 p.m. on Zoom. This semester's topic will be Anti-Racism and Social Justice Teaching and Learning.

Over the two-hour period, a total of seven different panel sessions, six of which will be offered twice in each of two consecutive time slots.

The sessions to be offered are:

1. Negotiating Difficult Conversations: Led by Emily Smith & Stephanie Storms

This session will discuss the challenges and opportunities of managing difficult conversations that arise when we engage in practices based on equity, diversity and inclusion in the classroom. In addition, we’ll discuss some practical strategies faculty can take to facilitate these conversations and support their own and their students’ learning. 

2. Anti-racist Pedagogy: Planning and Practice: Led by Rachelle Brunn-Bevel & Carol Ann Davis

Ready to start designing your spring courses? Want to integrate anti-racist pedagogy into your teaching practice? This session will introduce some best practices of anti-racist pedagogy and course planning, and create a familiarity with anti-racist approaches.

3. Faculty Opportunities for Action: Led by the Center for Social Impact; Betsy Bowen, Andrea Canuel & Melissa, Quan

The Center for Social Impact will examine the potential of community-engaged learning and community-engaged research to contribute to anti-racist work. We will discuss issues such as designing experiences that challenge, rather than reinforce, notions of privilege, and developing reciprocity in partnerships with the community beyond campus.

4. BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/Persons of Color) Alumni Perspectives: Led by Yolehema Felican, Class of 2012 & Tanika Eaves, Class of 1996

Join Fairfield University alumni for a poignant discussion about anti-racist practices in the classroom and campus culture co-facilitated by Yolehema Felican, Associate Director, Office of Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, class of ’12 and Tanika Eaves, Assistant Professor of Social Work, class of ’96. We will explore efforts and progress the University has made in supporting BIPOC students on campus and in the classroom. Alumni will share their perspectives with faculty, the University and current students about promoting anti-racist pedagogy and practices here at Fairfield at a seminal point in our collective national history.

5. From the Student Perspective: Led by Will Johnson, Dean of Students

Join Will Johnson, PhD, Dean of Students, for an intimate conversation about this particular moment as we grapple with a pandemic and social unrest during an election year. This will be an opportunity for reflection on an unusual fall semester, how faculty navigated instruction during unpredictable times, and a glimpse into the student body experience.

6. Person Centered Pedagogy in the EDI Classroom for Social Advocacy: Led by Stephaney Morrison 

This session will discuss how the person-centered pedagogy is useful in the EDI classroom to facilitate students’ social advocacy from planning course syllabi to practice. The following questions will be explored: What have been your experience in facilitating students’ social advocacy in the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) classroom? What has been your experience with micro-aggressions and implicit biases in your efforts to facilitate EDI? How did you deal with the challenges that confronted you in your efforts to facilitate social advocacy in the EDI classroom?

7. Anti-Racism & Your Discipline: Led by Nicole Fletcher 

This session will examine one faculty member’s journey of thinking about racism in her field of mathematics education and bringing anti-racist practices and pedagogies into her mathematics education course. We will use the case of her course to consider ways in which any faculty member, regardless of discipline, can integrate anti-racist pedagogies and practices into their courses. 

Attendees will be asked to select, at the time of registration, one session in the first time slot and one session in the second time slot. Regtistrations are now being accepted at https://form.123formbuilder.com/5744330/2021015-fdec-day-fall-2020.