Center for Teaching & Learning

This academic year hasn’t been easy.  The attacks on DEI work, increased conflict in the Middle East, and increasing partisanship in the US political context have weighed heavily on campus. In addition, our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic involved navigating enormous transitions and disruptions. As such, mental health support needs require more careful consideration on campus and in the classroom.  These issues can have often unpredictable and challenging effects in the classroom. In this panel, we step back to consider what it’s like teaching in tumultuous times.

For faculty, it’s not always clear how to navigate teaching in these tumultuous times.  Some of us are already teaching courses that focus directly on challenging or heavy content.  Others of us may find world events affecting students or ourselves, making it more challenging to address regular tasks.  Or we may find world events popping up unexpectedly in class discussions.  There’s no simple way to determine how and when to acknowledge or discuss stressful or controversial topics in class.

Our faculty panel will think through when and how they prepare classes for hard conversations, focusing on ways to support both our students and ourselves in the context of these current events. Professors will share how they’ve handled the “days after significant events” in their classes in the past. They’ll discuss considerations for acknowledging and addressing a diverse range of student (and faculty) responses to these events and strategies for engaging in the ensuing discussions, if the conditions are right.