Date: October 21, 2022
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​Provost Norris, Dean Spooner, Dr. Campbell, and Promotion and Tenure Committee Members:
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Please accept this letter as an official request to review this portfolio of materials for promotion to Professor at Appalachian State University. I am in my tenth year of service at App State, and brought one year of credit with me, which I earned at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas from 2012-2013. I served as Assistant Professor in the Curriculum and Instruction Department from 2013 until 2018, when I earned tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor. Since arriving at App State in 2013, I have taught courses in our elementary and middle grades education programs, as well as in the secondary history education program and the doctoral program in educational leadership. I have devoted time and energy to serving the university in various capacities, and the relationships I have developed throughout these experiences have no doubt contributed to the sustenance of my research agenda and successful teaching record in the field of social studies teacher education.
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I teach preservice teachers through two lenses: enactment of critical pedagogy, and community relationship building. These notions play out in my courses in a number of ways, most notably, in the incorporation of class meetings. Class meetings encourage democratic dialogue and provide a powerful space for creating trust by questioning various points of view that are often taken-for-granted. Through a deliberate incorporation of class meetings, we can provide space to create empathy for different points of view and address complex social issues (Alarcón & Bellows, 2018). This type of teaching celebrates diverse thought, use of democratic processes, and discussion of controversial social issues, but can be met with resistance. Students in my classes have reported being challenged, and can sometimes feel uncomfortable when confronted with unexpected realities about multicultural histories, and the struggles we face in the field of social studies education. I find this kind of teaching both challenging and stimulating; my teaching is both reflective of and responsive to my research interests.
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As my vita shows, I have maintained an active research agenda within the overlapping fields of social studies education and teacher education since attending graduate school at the University of Texas. Since earning tenure and promotion in 2018, my co-edited book, (Re)Imagining Elementary Social Studies: A Critical Reader, was published, and I am working on another co-edited book with colleagues about religion in public elementary schools. Growing in academia, I have become more selective about my research, and am not as quick to agree to collaborative project, though this is how I work best. I seek to spend my academic energy on topics that are truly of interest to me, in that they investigate the ways elementary social studies education can act as a catalyst for equity in the public schools and highlight content that is typically left out of curriculum due to teacher fears. For example, my latest article, Approaching the Teaching of War in the Elementary Classroom with Text Sets, describes ways teachers can use diverse children’s literature to teach this sensitive topic through the perspectives of refugee experiences. The two articles I wrote with Dr.s Gallagher and Swalwell document our research about the ways in which preservice teachers can work towards the goals of social justice by carefully critiquing resources ubiquitously available online. These types of collaborative projects allow me to stay current in my research field and promote meaningful inquiries into the social studies education of our youngest citizens.
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Teaching future educators compels me to serve in various roles in the field of social studies education, which allows for collaboration with other social studies teacher educators. In addition to serving on editorial review boards for some of the field’s premier research and practitioner journals, I also maintain service within the National Council for the Social Studies and its College and University Faculty Assembly. Attending and presenting at the annual NCSS and CUFA conferences annually allows me to stay current in the field and maintain reciprocal relationships with diverse colleagues both nationally and internationally. The relationships that began in these professional spaces have paved the way for innovations in both my teaching and research.
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In the last three years, I have devoted much of my academic time and energy to service at the university, college, and departmental levels. Joining the Inclusive Excellence Team in 2018 allowed me to engage in professional leadership in a number of ways. I began on the team by working closely with Dr. Susan Colby to develop an inclusive excellence syllabus framework to help faculty improve efforts to be more inclusive in the classroom. I presented this work at multiple faculty development sessions, with IE Liaisons, and at New Faculty Orientation.
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In 2020 I was named the Reich College of Education Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellow. A few months later we would learn that we would not return to typical face-to-face working, teaching, or meeting for quite some time. Throughout a tumultuous two years, the college’s IE Liaisons and I led the RCOE through a series of courageous conversations, drafted our college’s first anti-racist framework, and developed a set of inclusive excellence goals and initiatives.
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​In 2021 I led an initiative to create an Inclusive Teaching Lab with 8 esteemed colleagues across campus; it went live in January of 2021. We presented our work to the deans and the Council of Chairs. These introductions allowed the ITL team to take on the work of consulting with several departments across campus about their specific needs regarding inclusive excellence. We worked with computer science, the School of Music, the Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, and communications, among others.
The last five years working at Appalachian post-tenure and promotion have been extremely rewarding. After experiencing such trauma and heartache through the onset of Covid-19, missing the joys of teaching a room full of smiling students, and the added layers of being a motherscholar, I must say I am grateful I was here during these past few years. This is a magical place to live and to work, and I look forward to continuing my longevity here at App State.
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My intention in writing this letter was to highlight the work I have done since earning tenure and promotion at Appalachian State University, and to commit to maintaining the high level of research, teaching, and service I have presented within this portfolio. Within this digital dossier, please find a one-page vita, along with my full vita and the Curriculum and Instruction departmental promotion and tenure policies. Following these pages, you will find evidence of quality and effective teaching and research, as well as contributions to the department, college, university, and beyond, while I have served as a faculty member at Appalachian.
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Thank you for your consideration,
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Elizabeth Bellows, Ph. D.