Stars and Constellations – Openness, Equity, and Teaching Toward an Unfamiliar Sky

Robin DeRosa, director of Plymouth State’s Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative, will start this talk from the premise that the stories we tell about education—about what makes it effective, and rigorous, and good—have shaped our practices in ways that often defeat our deepest aspirations.

Many of us come to teaching and academic research as star-gazers, with brilliant curiosity and a sense of urgency about our work and how it matters to our students and to the world. But the horizon line in higher education right now feels less like a bright light than a dim flicker. Robin will cast a critical eye toward the challenges we face, especially in public higher education, and investigate how the daily work of faculty, staff, and students can be leveraged to restore a hopeful vision for the future of learning. The twin values of equity and openness will serve as a lodestar as we consider how pedagogy, course design, scholarship, and the daily operations of our universities can guide us into a future that is humane, vibrant, and beyond our expectations.

This talk is sponsored by the Contemplative Sciences Center with support from the UVA Library, A&S Learning Design & Technology, and Center for Teaching Excellence.

An advocate for open and public architectures for higher education, Robin DeRosa has worked with faculty and staff at dozens of institutions as they strive to make their learning environments more equitable and engaging. Robin was a high school English teacher and then an English professor for many years before she became the director of Plymouth State University’s student-driven Interdisciplinary Studies program. Today, she is the director of Plymouth State’s Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative, which is a center for innovative pedagogy and critical instructional design.