August 13, 2020

Events of the past five months have brought about changes to higher education – and to society itself – of unprecedented magnitude and impact.  Things that might have seemed unthinkable in late winter now define our shared existence as educators and inhabitants of a nation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unhinged many traditions once conceived as inviolate principles of how teaching and learning take place in our colleges; today there is all-but-universal awareness of the need to adopt different approaches to education.  The new reality has also underscored the fact that many students are at significant disadvantage in the colleges they attend, whether taught in class or on-line.  At the same time, the killing of an unarmed African American man by a police officer in Minneapolis has led to widespread national outrage, and intensified awareness of how much our societies and our institutions are imbued with racist traditions and thinking.

To address the unique challenges of our time and provide a useful resource to those who educate college students, The Great Lakes Colleges Association/Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLCA/GLAA) Consortium for Teaching and Learning (CTL) announces a major recasting of its web site:  http://glcateachlearn.org. 

Both the organization and design of the newly configured web site center on three main categories, as highlighted on the home page: “Into the Fall Semester,” offering resources and advice on teaching across modes, including general advice and technical/technological support; “Inclusive Pedagogies,” applying Universal Design for Learning to the present moment, focusing on issues of access and responding to the different learning circumstances and needs of individual students; and “Anti-Racist Pedagogies,” offering resources and approaches for developing anti-racist pedagogies across the curriculum, and advice on making our classrooms truly diverse, inclusive, equitable, and welcoming. 

Each topic heading within these categories designates “2 Go-To Articles” as salient treatments that offer key concepts in treating a topic.  Other groups of articles address related subjects that give more texture for those who seek it. We hope this arrangement can help reduce the anxiety that faculty members can easily feel at the amount of materials to read, which can seem overwhelming. 

The materials are curated in a way that includes recently published pieces as well as resources published earlier in the Covid season and prior to that.  The entries include written articles and video clips.  The editorial approach does not set out to argue a specific thesis but to offer perspectives that can help readers reach decisions of how to structure their own courses. 

Steven Volk, the Co-Director of our CTL, has done a masterful job of designing and building our recast web site, and we are indebted to his vision and resourcefulness. 

If you would like to have your name added to the CTL mailing list to receive periodic updates, please find the inquiry form at the bottom of the home page of the CTL web site.  The form asks only for your name, e-mail address, and institution to receive regular updates.

We also reach out to all of you who would like to contribute to our repository of resources that could be valuable to readers of the CTL site.  Please write to us at the e-mail addresses listed below to recommend a citation for inclusion.  Just as important, if there is a subject that you would like to write about for submission to the CTL, please do not hesitate to contact us.

GLCA/GLAA Consortium for Teaching and Learning

Co-Directors:

Gregory Wegner ([email protected])
Steven Volk ([email protected])
Web site: http://glcateachlearn.org/

Banner photo credit:  Pittwire — University of Pittsburgh