Decolonizing Your Syllabus

This workshop with Amanda Lee Savage will ask instructors to identify ways colonialism impacts their own lives by further exploring the creation of the colonial lens as “status quo.” We will discuss how that lens informs our curriculum, assignments, or classroom policies and discuss changes that align with a commitment to decolonization. Instructors are encouraged to bring their syllabi or assignments to the workshop.

Savage will give a talk, Seeing the Unseen: Identifying and Unlearning Colonial Paradigms in Higher Education, earlier in the day.

About

Amanda Lee Keikialoha Savage (she/her) teaches history at the University of Memphis and is an academic advisor for history majors. She is both kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian) and haole (white of European descent), and much of her community work involves straddling that line. She co-founded Native RITES, a small indigenous-led organization supporting the education, political organization, and sovereign rights of Native peoples in the Mid-South. She works with community organizations and academic institutions to help people understand how colonialism informs their pedagogy and worldviews and how to begin the lifelong process of decolonization.