African American Studies (AFAM), the School of Education (SOE) and the Race & Pedagogy Institute (RPI) at the University of Puget Sound have a shared history of collaboration over recent years. These collaborations took place in 2017 - 2021 under two projects aimed at developing new collaborative curricula between AFAM and SOE.

The Burlington Northern Company created an endowed fund at the University of Puget Sound to provide funding to assist curriculum development by faculty of the University.  This fund recognizes that changes in disciplines and in student interests frequently necessitate development of new courses or new approaches to course materials, and new academic programs. These funds are available to all full-time faculty members with preferences given to proposals involving team-taught or other inter-disciplinary courses, courses that are likely to enhance particularly the effectiveness of the core curriculum, or other kinds of innovative courses or programs.

AFAM, SOE and RPI worked together from 2017 - 2021 on three separate projects that were titled:

2018 | “African American Studies and School of Education Program Development Collaboration”

  • What is the arc of the work we have been doing and where might it take us?

    • Historical collaborations and questions at the intersections of the Race and Pedagogy Institute (RPI), African American Studies (AFAM), RPI Community Partners Forum, the School of Education (SOE) and K-12 education.

    • Curriculum development focused on developing an anti-racist pedagogical stance to build a practice of facing racism to move from reeling in fear to leaning into the ongoing work of equity.

    • The mismatch between the teaching force and the students in K-12 education. The teaching force is predominantly white, middle class, monolingual females who were raised in white communities. By 2023 55% of K-12 students will be students of color and 45% will be white students. 13% of teachers in Washington state are teachers of color 87% are white.

  1. Review and develop curriculum (EDUC 613/614, AFAM 399)
  2. Develop intentional mutually beneficial opportunities for programmatic and curricular collaboration
  3. Developing a pipeline to graduate preparation for Puget Sound undergraduates interested in becoming teachers and grounding teacher and counselor education in the specific context of Tacoma’s urban education environment. 

Classroom as a Site of Engagement

  • Fall 2017 AFAM & SOE faculty co-teach in EDUC 614
  • Spring 2018 MAT faculty solicit feedback in AFAM 399 class session
  • Summer 2018 Vibrant Schools members co-teach in EDUC 628
  • Fall 2018 classroom exchanges between AFAM 399 and EDUC 613/614

Curriculum Development

  • Revised Syllabi for EDUC 628/629
  • Revised Syllabi for EDUC 613/614
  • New Assignment for EDUC 614

Conference Planning

  • Teachers and Students Unlearning Racism Strand
  • Tacoma Public Schools Whole Educator Academy Conference Session in Summer 2017 & Summer 2018

AFAM, RPI, SOE Institutional Reflections and Relations

  • Advancing Systemic Equity Grant Proposal
  • Envisioning Pathways to connect AFAM and MAT

Classroom as a Site of Engagement

  • We have made institutional shifts in program orientation and purpose to center race in the curriculum. We have intentionally prioritized conversations about race and racism with MAT candidates in courses related to school-based placements and AFAM courses and with members of the Community Partners Forum. This means we are having conversations that we have not had systemically before and it disrupts previous silences.

Curriculum Development

  • MAT faculty are working more intentionally to engage antiracist and culturally responsive teaching practices. This means that some faculty began the work before feeling fully ready to do so and that faculty and MAT candidates are collectively developing language and frameworks for discussing race and racism (e.g., intent vs. impact, asset vs. deficit thinking, framework for individual, interpersonal, and systemic racism).

Conference Planning

  • AFAM 399 students saw the impact of their contributions and saw their work extending beyond the classroom to inform the MAT program. AFAM students and faculty got to experience other teaching practices as a part of the class session in Spring 2018. This means that we are working to forge connections between undergraduate and graduate students, students’ contributions are validated and inform curriculum development, and we are demonstrating the potential for AFAM to collaborate across programs and support other departments and programs in this work. It means that community partners can see the actions we are collectively taking to make changes.

AFAM, RPI, SOE Institutional Reflections and Relation

  • We are exploring different models for course collaboration including guest visits, working sessions, exchanges (e.g. AFAM 399 and EDUC 614). This means that we are working within, and also to disrupt, institutional structures that lead to isolation. We are exploring questions like: Is co-teaching a form of mentoring? What resources would be needed to make co-teaching possible? This means that institutional structures may need to change to support the work.
  • Review and develop curriculum (EDUC 613/614, AFAM 399)
  • Develop intentional mutually beneficial opportunities for programmatic and curricular collaboration
  • Developing a pipeline to graduate preparation for Puget Sound undergraduates interested in becoming teachers and grounding teacher and counselor education in the specific context of Tacoma’s urban education environment. 
2017 | “African American Studies Curriculum Collaboration with School of Education”
  • The African American Studies program launched its major in the fall of 2016 at the time there were four registered majors and 17 minors.  Alongside the growth of the number of students in the major and minor is the increase of student interest in the African American Studies course offerings and an increased interest from faculty members in other departments and programs seeking to collaborate on course development and other curriculum development projects.

  • As the School of Education explores a path for the future we in African American Studies have engaged with the new leadership in early discussions about possible connections and collaborations between our two programs. We are proposing to host a faculty retreat during the summer months. The retreat will be dedicated to reviewing and refining our curriculum for the major and the minor and we will work with faculty in the School of Education to explore the prospects of curriculum and programmatic collaborations that may be mutually beneficial to both entities as well as the Puget Sound as a whole. It is important to note that discussions about collaborations between these two programs build on the ongoing efforts of the Race and Pedagogy Institute to link higher education to K-12 education. One specific element of our efforts has included collaborations with the School of Education in our conferences. This emerging exploration between AFAM and the School of Education is a continuation of this effort with the prospect that we might develop creative and collaborative curriculum programing as a way to develop a pipeline to graduate preparation for Puget Sound undergraduates interested in becoming teachers and to ground the School of Education’s teacher education program in the specific context of Tacoma’s urban education environment.

  • Weeklong Summer Retreat to:

    • 1) Complete Syllabi in process

    • 2) Review and refine our curriculum as we begin to address the demands of our majors

    • 3) Explore with colleagues in the School of Education prospects for curriculum and programmatic collaboration.

This retreat will focus on reviewing the year 2016-2017, our first year as a major. We will begin with a broad review of the year we experienced as a campus community, including the launch of the major and the subsequent events of the year as it relates to our pedagogical practices and relationships, including with our students, colleagues, and the Tacoma community. We will also review and refine our overall curriculum with a focus on our established goals.

For these considerations, we should note that our full corpus of required courses for the major have all been approved --AFAM 101, 201, 399, 401, 402. Additionally, as part of marking our first full year as a major we will review our 5-year plan to include promotion, growth, and fund development.

Alongside the growth of the number of students in the AFAM major and minor since the launching of our major, is the increase of student interest in the African American Studies course offerings, and an increased interest from faculty members in other departments and programs seeking to collaborate on course development and other curriculum development projects. One incipient project of curriculum collaboration is with the School of Education. As the School of Education explores a path for the future, we in African American Studies have engaged with the new leadership in early discussions about possible connections and collaborations between our two programs. A major focus of this faculty retreat is our work with faculty in the School of Education to explore the prospects of curriculum and programmatic collaborations that may be mutually beneficial to both entities as well as the University of Puget Sound as a whole. Discussions about collaborations between these two programs build on the ongoing efforts of the Race and Pedagogy Institute to link higher education to K-12 education. One specific element of our efforts has included collaborations with the School of Education in our conferences. This emerging exploration between AFAM and the School of Education is a continuation of this effort with the prospect that we might develop creative and collaborative curriculum programing as a way to develop a pipeline to graduate preparation for Puget Sound undergraduates interested in becoming teachers and to ground the School of Education’s teacher education program in the specific context of Tacoma’s urban education environment. With the goal of developing specific proposals for collaboration, our discussions will include brainstorming for creative ideas, explorations of challenges and opportunities, and reflections on our shared and our divergent past.

With the help of the grant faculty, in the African American Studies and in the School of Education have worked collaboratively to

  1. Revise the program goals for African American Studies.
  2. Revise the program goals for School of Education –MAT and MED.
  3. Explore the potential pros and cons of intentional 4+1 and/or 3+1 pathways connecting AFAM/SOE
  4. Explore the prospects for collaboration on a range of projects including RPI projects, AFAM 399 Public Scholarship, and other efforts to enhance developments toward #3.

What did participants have to say?

AFAM Logo
Grant Project Participant

Appreciation for the careful listening, generosity of spirit and input, and insights of colleagues especially in the work of refining the goal statements of African American Studies and the School of Education

AFAM Logo
Grant Project Participant

A willingness to revisit painful histories and to discuss them in the mutual face-to-face presence of each other and a focus on the importance of unearthing, processing, and sitting with racist and historical legacies

AFAM Logo
Grant Project Participant

Identification of social justice as a possible shared framework and noting that this focus is not made explicit in the MAT goals and was not discussed yet in terms of what it might or could mean in practice

AFAM Logo
Grant Project Participant

Expressions of hope, being energized, and finding recommitment in the possibility of mutual collaboration and the potential for program and personal growth. Expressed commitment to rework/re-envision possibilities for partnerships, collaboration, program integration.

AFAM Logo
Grant Project Participant

Evidence of active re-thinking of, strategies for engaging in these conversations (e.g. reflections on how to share narratives about race), individual frameworks for courses (deepening definitions used in coursework), and goals (e.g., descriptive vs. aspirational goals, work attachments and state mandates do not have to only restrict the imagination/re-thinking)

Collaborators