R.I.S.E. Project | Inclusiveness | Student Spotlight | Culture Connection Cohort 3 | LinkedIn Learning | Leading with Questions | Professional Development Opportunities | |
Inclusiveness: Showing Students They Belong | |
Over the last two months, the R.I.S.E. team hopes that everyone learned some helpful tips and strategies for enhancing rigor in their courses. While we will continue to consider ways to create courses that are rigorously designed and designed for rigor, it is now time for us to discuss the second R.I.S.E. pillar: Inclusiveness. | |
At Lindenwood, we want ALL of our students to feel included and a sense of belonging regardless of their identities, backgrounds, levels of preparedness, or abilities. Students should feel that their diversity of experience, ability, identity, and opinion are valued and appreciated and will not prove to be barriers to their learning. In essence, we want and need to show our students that they matter. | |
Over the next couple of months, faculty will have several opportunities to discuss, learn, and revisit tips and strategies to help foster students’ sense of inclusiveness and belonging. Be on the lookout for information from the R.I.S.E. Scholars and make sure to check the Learning Academy calendar for news about upcoming events. | |
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Student Spotlights: Giving Students A Voice | |
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With the help of two wonderful videographers, Dr. Andrew Smith and Luke McMahon, we have begun a new phase of the R.I.S.E. project: Student Spotlights! As a reminder, the purpose of the student spotlights is two-fold: provide faculty with insight into the experiences and needs of our diverse student body and give students a voice by providing them with the opportunity to share their learning experiences with faculty.
Two amazing seniors, Robby Hamilton and Emery-Elias Lucero, kicked off this phase by completing interviews in late September and early October.
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Emery-Elias Lucero
(they/them)
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After providing background information, Robby and Emery-Elias answered general questions about the R.I.S.E. pillars such as:
- In your opinion, what makes a course challenging? In general, do you like to have challenging courses?
- What makes a course inclusive? That is to say, what makes you feel as if you belong in a course?
- How would you define instructor support in a course? What types of instructor support do you like to have in your courses?
- What makes a course engaging for you? How does course engagement impact your learning and persistence in the course?
The interviews concluded with a bang by asking students to answer one or both of the following questions:
- To be the best professors possible for you, what should your professors know about you that they might not think to ask?
- If you could tell your professors 1 thing that they could do to create the best learning experience possible for you, what would it be and why?
While Robby’s and Emery-Elias’s full student spotlight interviews will be posted to the R.I.S.E. website and Lindenwood Learning Academy YouTube channel sometime next month, faculty were able to see a portion of these student interviews during the October 19th Faculty Meeting. Since we are now in the Inclusiveness phase of R.I.S.E., the faculty heard about Robby’s and Emery-Elias’s thoughts about what makes a course inclusive. While we won’t provide any spoilers, their responses demonstrated that the smallest things can and do have a big impact on students’ sense of belonging and learning! After watching the Student Spotlights: Inclusiveness video, check out some of the tips and strategies that you can implement immediately in your courses to help foster a sense of belonging and inclusiveness among your students.
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We are excited to continue to hear about students’ learning experiences in future student spotlights, and we hope that students feel the same enthusiasm for these interviews as expressed by Robby’s final thoughts about being a student spotlight:
The Spotlight Experience presented an opportunity for students like myself to voice our opinions and be used as a voice for students alike so that we can usher in a greater future for Lindenwood University. It was a pleasure to be one of the students interviewed.
Be on the lookout for more Student Spotlights in the coming months!
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Resources on Inclusiveness that are Worth a Read | |
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Abstract: Student populations at institutions of higher education are increasingly diverse. To maximize students' feelings of inclusivity and belongingness within heterogeneous communities -- both of which have been linked with greater educational outcomes -- it is imperative for faculty to create and maintain inclusive classroom spaces.
The aim of this qualitative study is to analyze student feedback regarding what creates a sense of inclusiveness and belonging inside undergraduate classrooms. The researcher conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with students at a diverse, highly selective, private research university in the American South. Interview transcripts were coded using inductive analysis methods.
Findings indicate students' self-reported sense of inclusivity and belongingness are predominately within a professor's control. For example, students' senses of belonging increase when faculty members use diverse examples in class, relate course content to the real world, enable small-group discussions during class, model open and inclusive language in the classroom, and eliminate (or mitigate) tokenism. Student feedback was consistent across demographic diversity of respondents.
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This book explores how belonging differs based on students’ social identities, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or the conditions they encounter on campus. Belonging―with peers, in the classroom, or on campus―is a critical dimension of success at college. It can affect a student’s degree of academic adjustment, achievement, aspirations, or even whether a student stays in school. The 2nd Edition of College Students’ Sense of Belonging explores student sub-populations and campus environments, offering readers updated information about sense of belonging, how it develops for students, and a conceptual model for helping students belong and thrive. | |
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Nancy Messina: Leadership | |
Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership
This year’s leadership fellowship is focusing on how everyone can build leadership skills using the 5 practices of exemplary leadership from the book Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. The goal is to empower people in our different roles to see how we can be or are leaders and to improve upon our leadership skills. By following these practices we can be better representatives of our Q2 culture and find ways to be more humble, hungry, and smart.
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At this moment, the leadership fellowship is off and running. If you are interested in joining the fellowship, please send me an email at nmessina@lindenwood.edu. Anyone can join at any time! When you join you will start to receive emails from me with a weekly Friday reflection relating to leadership. Then at the end of each month, the participants of the fellowship will gather and discuss the particular aspect of leadership that we have been reading about. I have also created a fellowship hub, with resources about the fellowship and about leadership in general. This is a great place to see what is going on and allows participants to share their favorite quotes and resources with the group. I am always adding more content to the hub, so feel free to check it out and then come back to see what new quotes, resources, and LinkedIn Learning videos have been added for anyone to check out and learn from. | |
Culture Connection is a Professional Learning Community (PLC) for new hires where we explore Lindenwood's mission, values, and culture of Q2 service excellence and learn how to apply them to our daily work. Culture Connection is a 6-week PLC hosted by the Learning Academy that gives new hires a glimpse into where we have been, where we are going, and what it looks like to be an employee at Lindenwood University. | |
Farewell Cohort 3!
Cohort 3 was enthusiastic, driven, and so much fun to host! They are already making waves in the Lindenwood community and we can't wait to watch them succeed at Lindenwood University.
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Productivity improves when people cultivate the habit of asking questions. Growth and performance often stagnate when we tell others (and ourselves) what we should do. In this course, Dave Crenshaw explains why questions are valuable, provides practice creating effective questions, and gives examples of situations where we can ask team members, customers, and those we lead questions that help them grow. Dave discusses what a productive question is and what makes questions productive, then lists some examples of productive questions. He talks about how questions can help people grow and how listening improves questions. After going over how additional questions can help you access more layers of answers, Dave explains times when you should not ask questions, but simply listen. | |
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What does it take to be a leader? According to the empirical study led by Shamas-Ur-Rehman Toor, “Leadership pursues change that is coupled with sustainability” (2011). We are told that change is the one constant, so how can we positively influence others to adapt when necessary? Michael Marquardt (2014) suggested that we should lead with questions. Take a few minutes to reflect and ask yourself the following questions:
How can you use questions to identify other’s perspectives and improve communication?
Are there tools and strategies that you pulled from previous experience or learning that you could employ to help you ask better questions?
How do you ensure that you don’t put someone on the defense with your questions?
Marquardt said, “Questions can open new possibilities for virtually every organizational goal and function, be it the understanding of emerging markets, the gathering of information, the building of key relationships, or thinking objectively, learning, or developing an organization” (2014, p. 154). If questions are so important, when is the last time you asked for feedback on the quality of your questions? Roots of great questions start by causing the person or group to focus or to stretch their thinking, create reflection, challenge assumptions, and lead to breakthrough thinking, among others according to Marquardt’s book Leading with Questions. Good questions to use to employ these strategies are:
- What do you think about that…?
- Could you describe….?
- What other options can we think of?
- What might happen if…?
- What do you think you will lose if you give up…?
- What can we do about this?
- What have we tried before?
- What can we learn from this?
- What is stopping us?
- What possibilities does this open up?
The Learning Academy challenges you to put this list of questions in a place that you will see often, maybe on a post-it note by your computer, and give them a test drive the next time you are in a conversation. We believe that the art of asking questions is something that should be practiced and in turn you will see fruitful promise from your effort. What are you waiting on, give it a try!
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Connect Through Conversations:
Focus on Others
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Date: November 4, 2021
Time: 10 - 11 a.m.
Location: This is a hybrid event. Join us online or in the Learning Academy, LARC 009.
The key principles of the course are maintaining or enhancing self-esteem, listening and responding with empathy, asking for help and encouraging involvement from others, and sharing thoughts, feelings, and rationale in order to build trust. This session will focus on knowing emotions in others: the ability to empathize with and recognize emotional cues in others.
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SafeZone 2.0
November 2, 2021
9 - 11 a.m.
Socio-economic Status (SES) Bias
November 4, 2021
1 - 2 p.m.
Cross-Cultural Bias
November 8, 2021
11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
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Implicit Bias
November 9, 2021
1 - 3 p.m.
SafeZone 2.0
November 10, 2021
1 - 3 p.m.
disAbility Bias
November 11, 2021
2 - 3 p.m.
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DEI Task Force's Diversity Dialogue | |
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Date: November 10, 2021
Time: 3 - 4 p.m.
Location: This is a hybrid event. Join online or in the AB Leadership Room, Spellmann Center.
Diversity Dialogues offer the chance for the campus collective to explore themes related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Diversity Dialogues range in topic and differ from session to session.
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How to Create an Impact Statement | |
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Date: November 30, 2021
Time: 12:30 - 1 p.m.
Location: Online
During this micro-workshop, we will address Impact Statements as a common element of grant and funding applications. We will briefly review the National Science Foundation (NSF) "Broadening Impact" goals and related strategies for enhancing a sense of impact throughout a grant or project narrative.
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"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” – Abigail Adams | | | | |
