Background

The use of “diversity” as a term, concept, and goal in higher education has rapidly increased in recent years. What does it mean when “diversity” is used in mission statements, brochures, campaigns, and protocols? How has an increased use of “diversity” impact equity and access? Do public statements about “diversity” translate to the classroom? Understanding diversity and its implications requires an understanding about what diversity means. Delving beyond the “happy talk”, structures of equity, access, racism, sexism, homophobism, and many other dominant ideologies interplay to create a complex web holding diversity in place.

Challenge

When students are asked to critically think about and analyze difficult topics associated with diversity, the process can be confusing, scary, and at times, violent. How do we give students the space, time, and resources to engage with these concepts? How can we support individual personal growth and development and simultaneously encourage students to apply that development to course concepts?

Solution

Individual learning maps, or conceptual annotated bibliographies, can be a project that allows students to pursue their interests. In curating individual bibliographies, students undergo literature reviews, connecting readings to each other and to the student’s learning. My learning map focused on the language around diversity, including the implications of creating safe spaces, keeping silent, and starting a dialogue around the complex structures of diversity in higher education.

Results

I created a puzzle, laser cut at Georgetown’s Maker Hub, that illustrates the connections I made between readings. This project, “Figuring out Diversity in Higher Education”, not only shows how I worked to piece together seemingly separate entities, but also highlights how pervasive some deeper themes around diversity are: what assumptions is American society built upon? How does that proliferate to educational institutions, instructors, and students? Some of the pieces of this puzzle are key terms (eg., diversity, oppression) and some are key themes (eg., speech bubble, pencil and paper).

Reflection

In completing this learning map, I understood the importance of letting students navigate their studies to areas they feel is needed at the time. In addition, doing individual projects like this opens up a dialogue about how one class can take on many different paths, depending on the students. The puzzle itself showed how a dialogue around complex topics starts with simple engagement. I wanted to expand on this finding in my future courses, completing projects that first aim to involve people in some way, and then aim to open a dialogue about activism and working towards social good.