Last year I attended ISCORE, as well as its brand-new professional development half-day workshop. After it was over, I approached no fewer than three of my colleagues to see how I can get involved. (ISCORE is hosted by the Student Affairs division of Iowa State University. My writing center is housed under the Dean of Students Office, which is underneath the umbrella of Student Affairs and, hey! Student Affairs committees are totally part of my job description.) So. I AM INVOLVED.
As a first-timer to the committee, I wasn't in charge of any specific thing as I acclimated. I'd also never been involved in major conference planning (just smaller mixer-type things via WPA-GO), so this was a pretty fascinating experience. Not only did I get to learn about the huuuuuge number of things that go into a conference (all the way from pulling a budget together, to making sure the catering doesn't suck, to getting nominations for awards, to buying thank you gifts for keynotes), but I got to watch a number of my colleagues being uber-competent at problem-solving.
For my own participation, I ended up lending a hand with registration, doing roving A/V troubleshooting, and covering the social media beat. For the purposes of the conference, I took social media to mean doing a bit of hype on the conference Facebook page. Someone else was in charge of the conference Twitter account, but that worked out fine for me, as both the volume and nature of my conference tweeting wouldn't be quite right for an official Twitter account.
So, my official disclaimer about my tweeting for this particular conference: I'm on the ISCORE planning committee and on the social media beat. That said, tweets from my account my personal reactions and interpretations of discussion, and don't represent the official narrative or positions of the ISCORE program.
And now, the tweets:
- ISCORE Professional Development Workshop.
This year's workshop leader was Dr. Heather Hackman, who led a rollicking and challenging four hours of discussion about systemic racism. It was AMAZING.
- Building a More Inclusive Department: A Case Study as presented by Leslie Hogben, Cliff Bergman, Justin Peters, Michael Young, Mike Dairyko, Stephanie Wang, all from the Mathematics department.
Panel description: This session will discuss a concerted effort by the ISU Mathematics Department to build a more inclusive department, with a focus on the graduate program. Strategies, successes, failures, and outcomes will be discussed. Although the Department won the 2015 American Mathematical Society Award for an Exemplary Program based in part on these efforts, such a project is never finished and challenges remain.
- Morning Address. As we officially kicked off ISCORE proper, Luis Rico-Gutierrez of the College of Design gave the opening address.
- Why Does Talking About Race Suck So Much? Getting Students to Discuss Systemic Racism and White Privilege, as presented by Brianna Burke.
Panel description: In this lesson plan, which opens any of my courses focused on race, I begin with a critical discussion of systemic racism. It is important for students to understand that they live within—and some benefit from—a system they did not create, but nevertheless exists. They can choose to live within this system by doing nothing about it, or they can decide it is wrong, and they will not partake in it. I begin with world colonialism, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, and our shameful legacy of global systemic racism. Briefly outlining our global history for students, I move our discussion to the United States, illuminating our problems with race and inequality in our country and how they were created, then how they have been perpetuated and persist today. My lesson plan ends with a conversation about why learning about race is important, a deep exploration of white privilege, and then what students can do to become anti-racist allies.
- Fears of Difference and Understanding the Benefits, as presented by Raquel Botello-Zamarron, Spurty Surapaneni, and Meifen Wei.
Panel description: In this presentation, we will discuss research findings that include voices of ISU students as we work to become a community of inclusion and embrace the infinite benefits of diversity. We will address how students feel about diversity on campus. We will also look at the concerns experienced by students in terms of having diverse relationships on campus. Using psychological knowledge and research findings, we will further discuss addressing the concerns faced by both minority and majority students. Further, we will explore how diversity and multicultural environments are benefits to communities and individuals.
- Keynote Address, as presented by Dr. Barbara Love.
- Understanding and Reducing Implicit Bias, as presented by Stephen Biggs
Panel description: Contemporary research on racism in cognitive psychology focuses primarily on implicit biases. One has an explicit bias EB if one has EB, one can become aware that one has EB by reflecting on her own thinking, and one voluntarily uses EB to guide thought and action. One has an implicit bias IB if one has IB, one can’t become aware that one has IB by reflecting on her own thinking, and IB automatically guides one’s thought and action. Two robust findings from research on implicit biases: first, many people who explicitly reject any racist ideology have implicit biases against African Americans; second, because of their implicit biases, many people who explicitly reject any racist ideology behave in ways that differentially harm African Americans. Despite the focus on implicit biases within cognitive psychology, popular discussions of race relations rarely consider them, likely because too few people understand how implicit biases work. In this presentation I (i) review recent literature on implicit biases against African Americans, (ii) explain how these biases explain much of the behavior that differentially harms African Americans, and (iii) explore strategies for eliminating these implicit biases and, insofar as they can't be eliminated, minimizing their impacts.
- Men of Color: Intersections of Race/Ethnicity, Gender Role Socialization, and Masculinity, as presented by Stacey Ko and Julio Rivas
Panel description: All men are influenced by various components of their upbringing and background in their conception of what constitutes a man, with identity markers such as race and ethnicity playing an especially salient role in the unfolding of one’s gender role socialization. Men of color may experience difficult dilemmas as they strive to remain faithful to the values of their culture of origin while also negotiating between rigid, sexist, or overly restrictive gender roles and incompatible situational demands. For example, culture-specific conceptions of masculinity may promote success and well-being in certain situations (e.g., working hard to provide for one’s family), yet also be maladaptive in others (e.g., distress in intimate partner relationships as a result of overemphasis on work). Our presentation will discuss how men of color cope with and adapt to the complex interaction of race/ethnicity-based gender role socialization and situational demands. We will also engage faculty, staff, and students in a thoughtful discussion about the unique race-based gender constraints experienced by men of color.
- Closing ceremony, including remarks from the departing Senior Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Thomas L. Hill, and Brenda Jones Change Agent Award winner, Markus Flynn.
All in all, a successful conference! I'm looking forward to next year already.
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