Life off of the Syllabus: Empathy and Understanding between Faculty and Students
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Location
Virtual
Start Date
3-5-2021 12:00 PM
End Date
3-5-2021 1:00 PM
Description
Research has consistently shown that informal interactions between students and faculty boost academic and personal outcomes for students. Moreover, these relationships can have a reciprocal effect on faculty members in the form of greater verstehen - or understanding - of the lives of students. Based on a review of this literature and personal observations and experience coordinating a program for informal student/faculty interactions, I argue that now, more than ever, we need to develop our empathy for our students. Through the Black Live Movement, a global pandemic, threats to Dreamers, and intimidation of the Gender and Sexually Diverse Community, life off of the syllabus may be our best approach to empowering student success.
Target Audience: Faculty and Students
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Life off of the Syllabus: Empathy and Understanding between Faculty and Students
Virtual
Research has consistently shown that informal interactions between students and faculty boost academic and personal outcomes for students. Moreover, these relationships can have a reciprocal effect on faculty members in the form of greater verstehen - or understanding - of the lives of students. Based on a review of this literature and personal observations and experience coordinating a program for informal student/faculty interactions, I argue that now, more than ever, we need to develop our empathy for our students. Through the Black Live Movement, a global pandemic, threats to Dreamers, and intimidation of the Gender and Sexually Diverse Community, life off of the syllabus may be our best approach to empowering student success.
Target Audience: Faculty and Students
Comments
Michael D. Gillespie is Associate Professor of Sociology at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois, which he joined after completing his Ph.D. at Western Michigan University.
Dr. Gillespie has the distinguished honor to teach the required applied statistics course in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology. This course, for which students most often only enroll because it is a program requirement, is therefore met with much anxiety and skepticism by Sociology and Criminal Justice majors. However, integrating statistical literacy with a pirate, props, M&M chocolate candies, and real world applications, Dr. Gillespie develops for his students a critical eye toward social statistics that, in hopes, lives and breathes outside of the classroom.
Inspired by Paulo Freire, Parker Palmer, and bell hooks, teaching sociology and statistics with a critical pedagogical orientation is an opportunity, not an impediment, to combine his passions for education, statistics, and sociology. Working with a diverse group of students who have their own biography, struggles, and passions is inspiring. When these worlds collide, as Carl Sagan writes, ‘something incredible is waiting to be known’.