Racial Equity and Justice

Last Updated: December 1, 2023

The Center for Teaching Excellence is committed to centering principles of educational equity and inclusive teaching practices in all areas of our work. We believe that teaching and educational development should be anti-racist and anti-oppressive. They should actively work to dismantle systems and practices that marginalize Black, Indigenous, and other students, faculty, and staff of color as well as members of other minoritized and underserved groups in higher education spaces. 

We acknowledge that we have not always lived up to these commitments. Too often in the past we had equitable and inclusive pedagogies as a piece of our work rather than as its core, and we did not consistently promote practices that explicitly support the work, learning, and well-being of BIPOC faculty and students. We are working hard to change this and yet still recognize we have work to do.

Drawing from our mission, the CTE is advancing work to…

• create programs and services that meet the needs of and are responsive to UVA’s diverse instructors, who represent the full range of teaching experiences, disciplinary backgrounds, and social identities.

• intentionally and systematically embed and center principles of educational equity and inclusive teaching practices in our programs, services, and practices.

• advocate for and drive systematic changes that improve the teaching lives of UVA instructors and ultimately the academic lives of UVA students.

• ensure that CTE internal practices, policies, and physical spaces reflect our core values.

Below we describe the work we have been doing since 2021 to advance our commitment to educational equity and inclusivity. We share this page in the interest of transparency and accountability. We commit to keeping it up to date as our revision progresses.