My Professor is an Angry (Black) Woman: Strategies for Combating Controlling Images in the Classroom

• In Event: 2222 - Teaching and Learning Symposium Roundtable Session
  In Informal Discussion Roundtable: Table 01. Teaching About Race

Abstract

Diversity has become a common rhetoric appropriated by institutions of higher education who recognize its innate value for (white) students in an increasingly diverse and globalized world. Yet, little effort is made to acknowledge the distinctive challenges of women and faculty of color who routinely encounter race and gender bias that manifests in hostile classroom environments and negative student evaluations that poison our emotional, social and professional lives. Many publications document these negative effects (Gutierrez y muhs, Nieman, Gonzalez, Harris, 2012), especially for Black women whose lived experiences at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression exposes us to controlling images that make it particularly difficult for (white) students to accept us in the professorial role. Rarely is the focus on providing strategies to proactively mitigate potential negative impacts.

This presentation/doiscussion will focus on successful strategies for teaching at the intersections of race and gender in a political climate where white supremacist views are becoming more overt and more mainstream. The presentation answers the following questions: How does one survive and thrive in this kind of political climate without “losing your soul” as Kerry Ann Rockquemore would say? How does one enact teaching strategies that successfully mitigate race and gender bias in student evaluations of teaching? What are common rhetorical patterns in student evaluations of racially and ethnically diverse women that paint us as less competent than our white and/or male counterparts? What are appropriate responses to students who regularly challenge your knowledge and expertise in the classroom? What are best practices in the classroom that allow for proactively addressing these common forms of rhetoric?

Author

• Bedelia Nicola Richards, University of Richmond