Newsletter February 2021

In communications studies, and particularly communications and international development, there is still a tendency of promoting the neo-colonial development discourses, where researcher ‘A’ conducts a study that explores the way that communications and media are used in a so-called 'developing' country. That's not to say that international research is not valid, but let's ask the question — how many times have you seen a researcher from the global south do research on a high-income country to promote 'development' in that country? There is a very direct power discourse that promotes a certain set of values on the subject of study. The debt part then comes from the 'saviorism' embedded in the research that then expects some kind of indebtedness for engaging in the 'development' enterprise, oftentimes to the detriment of local values and rewarding the interests of the ‘savior.’

Paying back the educational debt, in the second option, might look like ensuring that more diverse scholarship is included in texts and content, as well as faculty diversity, so that students are more able to promote ideas, values and norms that are not encumbered by traditional, and often-times biased norms.

An example here might help — the historical framework of the white male anthropologist (maybe not so historical, considering Indiana Jones — a fictional historian, only came out within the last 20-30 years), doing research on so-called 'primitive' cultures. Rather than burden students with this paternalistic and colonial framework of research norms, that may create replicated behavior, ensure research includes decolonized methods and decolonized research perspectives, that generate less archaic and more scientifically inclusive and thus beneficial knowledge frameworks. 

In relationship to my field of composition, I think this could mean that students are coming into college classes having had less experience writing, and using technology to write, than their more well-off peers.  To pay back the debt my department can create courses that give more time and compassion to these students.  Contract grading could be implemented department wide to reward student’s work rather than assessing them on skills they may not have had the chance to practice or learn, which is what traditional grading of essays tends to do. 

We can make sure that we focus our instruction and feedback on students' critical thinking skills and not just grammar or language issues (I've heard of studies that show that the kind of feedback comp teachers give students who write in non-standard ways is very different from how we give feedback to students who do write in standard ways).  We need to restructure or continue to shape our courses so that students aren’t set up to fail our courses and have to retake them, possibly needing to leave the University to pass a first year writing course elsewhere, which costs time and money.

I’m new to this concept, so I look forward to learning more about it.

Not everybody has been served equally by our educational system. If certain groups of people are receiving lower quality of service, due to systemic issues like lower funding, implicit biases of teachers, systems of tracking or other reasons, there is a debt present. The longer this goes on, the more "educational debt" that is accrued.

Thinking from the lens of educational debt, it is not enough to just fix unjust systems in education. It is also important to think about how to pay back this debt to the people who have been impacted by years of lower quality of service.

I'll also add that a lot of research that has human implications (like public health or genetics) is primarily done with white people in mind, which excludes the implications for our communities of color. And a lot of students of color are systematically removed because higher education was designed for and by white people.

In order to pay back this educational debt, myself and other educators in biology can prioritize uplifting and amplifying the voices of students of color to ensure they have equitable access to resources and opportunities to succeed in biology. We can start by making it clear that we value our students of color and that their perspectives and identities are assets in biology. We can also disaggregate grades by student identities to see how we as educators may be either closing or adding to equity gaps in higher education. We can intentionally integrate the voices of scientists of color into our courses and make it clear where in history we have silenced those voices and how we can correct this moving forward.

Anthropology and archaeology are not mainstream middle or high school subjects (except in the wealthiest private schools). Add to this the elevated mainstream cultural positions occupied in contemporary societies by the traditional study of the past (archaeology) and of the "exotic" present (anthropology) and the result is a set of elite subjects.

Over the past 20 years, archaeology and anthropology have made significant progress to address this problem, though these efforts, for the most part, have been at the professional and academic levels. The real heavy-lifting needs to be done in the everyday, week-in-week-out practice of education and in addressing systemic racism in society at large.

Paying back the debt? I am not sure that I have an easy answer.

If so, my field has a lot of educational debt to pay back, especially to BIPOC teachers. Early childhood education is a field dominated by white folks, especially white women. In my opinion, there is a lot of gatekeeping in terms of requirements for permits, licenses, minimum degree requirements, etc. Teacher training programs require so much financial and time investment, and often entry-level jobs offer barely a living wage. Teachers are often required to pay for multiple background checks and make time for professional development with little to no financial incentive. We need to remove these barriers to create pathways to careers and job opportunities that motivate teachers from diverse backgrounds to enter and stay in the field.

.....Hopefully this has something to do with the topic at hand! 

Too often it seems that educational debt really means mentoring, recruiting and teaching students to accommodate and assimilate in order to achieve success in the white university classroom. This process may also mean denigrating and dismissing students' families, communities, cultures, language, etc., and can result in extreme suffering and alienation. Educational debt also refers to all of the ways that academics exploit and, yes, appropriate the work of other academics and students who have less power.

In feminist anthropology and WGS there are many ongoing conversations about ways to conduct research that is more useful to the folks with whom we work, how to create more horizontal, participatory research relationships, use privilege in ways that confront power structures and work on projects here and transnationally that advance social justice in the broadest sense of the word.

If this pandemic ever ends, I would like to see a radically different university that is not built on neoliberal, corporate capitalism. I would like to see ANTH and WGS advocate and invest in inclusive models of teaching and learning that challenge the classroom hierarchies based on white, elite, male supremacy. I would like to continue, then finally win the fight for free public education: Early Childhood > PhD. 

Two, in collaboration with our campus partners, we provide educational programming and events, training opportunities and consultations on issues. Collaborating with faculty on events — in and out of the class — is important to our team and to students’ experiences at SF State. An example of this is the January 2021 Faculty Retreat, which focused on creating an anti-racist University. Here, academic and co-curricular leaders engaged in rigorous conversation about how we can challenge and support each other in our anti-racism work across campus.

Third, we lead or co-lead numerous work groups, task forces and committees charged with addressing campus climate experiences for a number of campus populations and groups. With students at the heart of our work, we lead courageous conversations and develop action items that lead toward incremental campus climate improvements. We would be happy to meet and present to your area the campus climate work we’re leading.

Compassion and consciousness are our community values. We are all responsible for addressing and improving campus climate. If you would like to schedule a classroom presentation, training opportunity or discuss a program collaboration possibility with our team, please email Frederick Smith, Assistant Vice President, Equity & Community Inclusion. 

Feel Good Fridays will be held every Friday from 10-11 a.m. from Feb. 12 through March 12. Space for each session is limited. To register, email president@sfsu.edu. An email confirmation will be sent once the date is confirmed.  If demand exceeds available Feel Good Fridays, more will be scheduled.

Questions to expect:

• How are you staying connected with the campus and your colleagues?
• How did someone lift you up this week and what have you done to lift someone up?
• What are some new hobbies you’ve taken up to de-stress?
• What will you do to reinvigorate yourself this week?
• What are you doing for self-care?
• What makes you smile?