Service and Leadership.
Service Narrative
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I have demonstrated my commitment to service at the department, college, and university level in many ways. I conceptualize service in these capacities to be a voice for the marginalized, to advocate for folks who are otherwise ignored, and to model ways teachers can be active citizens in various spaces.
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To serve in the C&I department means to be present, to offer ideas, and to support new faculty. I have served as a mentor to new faculty in the department and collaborate with folks to team-teach or co-design lessons. I have continued to volunteer to serve on course development teams to design courses more contemporarily, inclusive of multiple perspectives and diverse course readings. I have served on search committees in our department to bring in the best candidates, and most recently, I agreed to serve as Faculty Senator for the C&I Department.
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In the Reich College of Education, I have engaged in summer grant projects to help teachers and schools and drafted a college-wide curriculum map. I served as Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellow from 2020-2022 and worked alongside Dean Spooner and the RCOE Administrative Council to develop the Inclusive Excellence Goals and Initiatives for our college. The team of eight Inclusive Excellence Liaisons and I led the college through a courageous conversations series in 2020 that opened up space for us to be vulnerable and talk about how the college can focus on anti-racist practices and policies.
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At the university level I have served in various capacities. I spent some time serving on the ASU History Committee that organized the university’s inaugural Founder’s Day in 2018. I joined the Inclusive Excellence Team as an IE Coordinator, which allowed me to lead folks in various departments across campus in inclusivity training, as well as the Inclusive Syllabus Framework. This position also allowed for me to meet new faculty during New Faculty Orientation each year, which has led to collegial relationships with folks across campus I would otherwise not have met. Another aspect of the inclusive excellence work included conceptualizing and developing the Inclusive Teaching Lab with a team of folks from various departments. Most recently, I have been asked to serve as the Faculty Senate Representative on the newly formed Chief Diversity Office Advisory Board. With the disbanding of inclusive excellence, I see this as another way to serve the university toward the aims of social justice and democratic education.
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Finally, I serve in the broader field of social studies education by reviewing manuscripts for a number of journals and serving as an external reviewer on other social studies teacher educators’ promotion materials. I have also contributed to the narrower field of elementary social studies education through founding the Elementary Social Studies Education Summit with a team of scholars from around the country. Our Summit has had great success the past three years with no plans of stopping.
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Teacher educators have a unique responsibility to model the practices and professionalism we expect of our students. Through serving in various roles across multiple levels, I exhibit my commitment to the field of social studies education. I choose to serve in roles that reinforce the importance of others above self, and act within micro and macro cultures for the purpose of the common good. I serve in these various roles not only because I love people and the endeavor of democratic public education, but to exist as a model of service for my students. Below I highlight three notable indicators of my commitment to service, which demonstrates exceptional performance by exceeding departmental criteria during my tenure as an Associate Professor at Appalachian State University. In addition to the notable indicators discussed here, I have included a bulleted list of the ways in which I served the college, university, and larger social studies education community in my materials.
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Notable Indicators of Service and Outreach Contributions
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Notable Indicator 1: Service to the RCOE
Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellowship: After years of serving on short-lived diversity task forces and working groups, not much traction was being gained in the RCOE in terms of our efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion. I was invited in 2018 to serve as an Inclusive Excellence Liaison, as the IE Team at the university level was seeing some movement in this area.
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The first activity in which I engaged as an IE Liaison in the RCOE was to facilitate a gallery walk in our RCOE staff and faculty meeting that involved reading quotes from data collected at our university. Quotes all around the room had folks ready to talk about why they were showcased on the walls. By the time the IE Team was called upon to do the activity at the end of the meeting, there was not enough time left to do the activity justice. We opted out, and Dean Spooner assured us we could do the activity at the next meeting, which we did. A couple of months later we began the conversation with folks in the college about inclusive excellence in the RCOE. By 2019, I felt efforts toward incorporating IE work in the college were gaining momentum, and I decided to apply for the role of Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellow, to begin in January 2020.
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2020 began with plans to draft a mission statement for the college and develop IE hiring guidelines specific to the RCOE. Leading a group of 8 faculty and staff liaisons, our efforts halted and took a drastic turn with the onset of what was to become the Covid-19 global pandemic. IE work shifted in the college to how we could equitably get faculty, staff, and students what they needed to be successful completing their semester.
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That summer I questioned where we were as a college in terms of calling out racism and supporting anti-racist scholars like Ibram X. Kendi, Bettina Love and Sara Ahmed. I felt personally tasked with figuring out what to do as we watched George Floyd’s horrific murder, questioned how we were going to ever have normal schooling again, and quarantined ourselves in our homes. The Black at AppState demands were presented to administration, and the IE Team was largely involved in listening to staff and faculty, attending town hall meetings, and counseling our students.
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I took the Faculty Fellowship seriously and tried to find common ground we could walk on. Dr. Muhammad and I collaborated on developing a Courageous Conversations Series for the RCOE that extended into the fall semester. Uncertainty and tensions were high but we (the IE Liaisons and I) had to try and steer the ship. This work was difficult. And I have thought of a million ways I could have done things differently, but I am proud of the work we were able to accomplish in this time. In addition to the Courageous Conversations Series about race and anti-racism, we drafted the RCOE IE Goals and Initiatives that each college shared with the Provost, we drafted the RCOE Anti-Racist Framework. Though I do not think we worked miracles, I do feel like we took a shot at solving an intangible problem and producing results for everyone, and we had some small successes.
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In her book, Complaint!, Sara Ahmed discusses the job of “collecting complaints”, which I feel was a large part of my job as IE Faculty Fellow. The collecting of complaints requires a witnessing of the retelling of testimonies that are being told because folks have gone through something. But as they testify, which generates the trauma again in its reliving, they continue to go through it. “What leads you to make a complaint is what makes it hard to complain. In other words, the very experiences you need to complain about are the same experiences that make it difficult to complain” (Ahmed, 2021, p. 35).
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Serving as IE Faculty Fellow allowed me to enact my passions for equity within the confines of academia, and it greatly affected me personally and professionally. I cannot dispose of these stories, and I will carry them with me as I continue to serve in roles that allow me to retell these stories and work toward institutional change.
Partnering with Teachers, Schools, and Leadership: During the 2020-2021 school year, I also served alongside Drs. Betsy Rosenbalm, Kimberly Money, Julie Hasson, Tracie Salinas, and Alicia Muhammad on the Public School Partnership Leaders Council. We held monthly 2-hour virtual meetings with about 50 teachers across the state to provide them with professional development sessions, inspirational guest speakers, video clips, shared readings, and a real sense of community. I loved helping to plan and attending these sessions, and felt a real camaraderie among participants. This collaborative effort led to the PLC’s participation in IDEA-CON, a conference put on by the Center for Math and Science Education Center each year.
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During the PLC, I was invited to share my research on The Culture of 80% in the form of a workshop (see further description in the Research section), which I had been talking through with my colleague, Dr. Muhammad in the James Center. The successful 2-session workshop afforded me the opportunity to make connections with folks from Alleghany County, Elkin City Schools, the Academy at Middle Fork, and Hardin Park School. In Alleghany, I worked with a teacher on the backlash from her community when she received money from the Ashe County Black Lives Matter chapter on the Donors Choose platform for the gifting of diverse children’s books to her global classroom.
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I was invited by Superintendent Myra Cox to lead a 2-day workshop for the leadership team of Elkin City Schools over the summer of 2021. It was at this point Dr. Cox and I discussed the possible collaborations between Elkin City Schools and App State, and she later put in a bid for Elkin City Schools to host the next App State Academy Lab School. I was also invited over the teacher work days in May to present the Culture of 80% as a 2-day workshop at Hardin Park School, here in Watauga County, to the school's newly founded Diversity Team and administrators. Hardin Park had done a school-wide inclusion survey the previous year and wanted guidance for what to do next.
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These partnerships no doubt aided the RCOE in modeling the enactment of our anti-racist framework by sharing current data regarding children and teachers of color in North Carolina, as well as a synthesis of research in the field of race and teaching.
Notable Indicator 2: Service to the University
Inclusive Excellence Coordinator: Since joining the Inclusive Excellence Team in 2018, I have worked to uphold the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion commitments. I worked with members of the team in various capacities over these last five years, and have gained invaluable knowledge and experience from our collective endeavors. Serving in the role of IE Coordinator from 2018-2022 allowed me to meet folks across campus I would otherwise not have met, and led to some other important opportunities. For example, I worked with the department of computer science in the summer of 2021 to welcome computer science teachers through their CS4ALL program. I collaborated with Dr. Andrew Bellemer in the biology department (also an IE Coordinator) to engage the teachers in some identity work and lead them through the Culture of 80% workshop. Drs. Tashakkori and Jay Fenwick invited me back in 2022 to deliver a solo workshop, and Dr. Bellemer and I will join the Computer Science faculty in 2 concurrent department meetings this November to engage in some anti-racist and identity work. This is but one example of the departments with which I have worked in the role of IE Coordinator.
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Inclusive Teaching Lab: As I was finishing my first year serving as the RCOE IE Faculty Fellow (in 2020), I was asked by then co-Directors of the IE Team, Drs. Greg McClure and Jamie Parson, to lead a team of folks in developing a teaching and curriculum hub where faculty could come at their convenience for DEI resources and support. As team lead, I was given the winter break to work with the team and develop what became known as the Inclusive Teaching Lab–a concept which would be revealed in mid-January to administrators, deans, and chairs.
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The ITL was successful in enticing folks to use our consultation services, as 14 departments across the university filled out interest forms. This helped us gauge interest and plan for future work. We ended up having the capacity to work with 4 different departments in the spring of 2021. Over the summer of 2021, Dr. Bryson resumed the role of Director of Inclusive Excellence, and we ended up folding the consulting work of the ITL within the broader work of the IE Team. In the fall we continued working with departments in this consultative work.
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My leadership at the university level led to new conversations among departments who had not yet started IE work, some extended work of departments looking to review their syllabi, and some invitations to work with even more departments in the upcoming year. Consulting work with departments and faculty was what the IE Team had originally envisioned as its collective charge, so finally seeing our work in action was very rewarding.
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Notable Indicator 3: (Inter)National service and leadership in the field of elementary social studies education
Current trends including political polarization, deliberate attacks on public education and the move toward the privatization of schools, and the longstanding racial divide in our nation begs for a revolution in the way students learn about the world. I believe social studies education is at the center of this revolution. I view my roles within the NCSS, CUFA, NCCSS, as well as my editorial duties across different professional journals, as strategic positioning to serve as an agent of change. Within these spaces I can advocate for the inclusion of marginalized voices, the enactment of critical pedagogical social studies methods, and the betterment of public social studies education.
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Motherscholars: Our CUFA Motherscholar group has begun exploring ways to think about our work as both mothers of children who experience social studies teaching (or the lack thereof) in public schools, while teaching and advocating for the inclusion of social studies curriculum in these same schools. We have become keenly aware of how the stickiness of our identities afford us privileges and also can work against us in our school parent or friendship groups. We will gather again at the annual meeting this year to form working groups and discuss potential research projects.
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Elementary Social Studies Education Summit (ESSES): After the success of our edited book, (Re)imagining Elementary Social Studies: A Critical Reader, colleagues using our book, or some of its chapters, in their courses expressed a need for a space to have conversations about trying to teach elementary social studies methods courses differently. The CUFA organization has historically (and problematically) focused mostly on accepting proposals that center secondary social studies. During our CUFA conferences, it was typical for all elementary social studies sessions to be held during the same time slot, so there was never enough space deliberately created for elementary social studies research and practice conversations. As we have pushed CUFA to be more inclusive of elementary social studies research, we also dreamed up an Elementary Social Studies Education Summit (ESSES). We held the first Summit in Wilmington, NC in UNC-Wilmington’s Watson College of Education. With participants from all over the country, the Summit was more successful than we could have imagined. After a lull in our momentum in 2020, we were able to hold virtual summits in 2021 and 2022 using App State’s Kajabi platform. Our ESSES 2023 planning meeting is scheduled for this December!
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Fulbright Scholar Application: Forming sustainable relationships with international scholars is especially important in the field of social studies, and collaborating with colleagues in other countries opens up possibilities for the exchange of ideas, learning from one another, as well as sharing knowledge and experiences with our students. Before having kids and long before the pandemic, international research and service was a large part of my academic identity. I feel the time is right to reignite these passions, so I have submitted a Fulbright Scholar application in the hopes of serving the international social studies education community again through research in Romania, to begin in October 2023.