Creating and Sustaining Belonging in Undergraduate Courses • FIRST Inclusive Education Presentation

Dr. Kevin Gannon (Queens) helps us consider ways to create and sustain belonging for students.

A well-developed body of research emphasizes the importance of students’ sense of belonging in their academic success at college.  Much of it, however, takes a larger institutional perspective and does not always examine the individual classroom–or provide much guidance for instructors who want to be attentive to student belonging in their classes.  This session will explore the significant findings of the research on student belonging, with an eye toward what it can tell us about our actual work in our own courses, with and among our own students.  We will consider issues such as class climate, discussions (particularly over controversial or emotionally-laden topics), and the affective dimensions of learning, and to formulate strategies that will help shape our teaching practices in ways that promote and enhance students’ senses of belonging.

Kevin Gannon is Director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence and Professor of History at Queens University of Charlotte, in North Carolina.  He is the author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (West Virginia University Press, 2020), and his writing has also appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vox, CNN, and The Washington Post. In 2016, he appeared in the Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay.  His current projects include a textbook on the US Civil War and Reconstruction eras and a critical examination of gateway and survey courses in higher education.

View the event summary here.

View the event slides  here.