Faculty Resources for Handling Tense Discussions of Election Outcome, Other Topics By Kathy Johnson
All University of Kentucky faculty members know their areas of expertise and how to convey that to students. What happens, though, when current events are not part of a class curriculum, but they are the elephant in the room (or Zoom as it might be), and students want to discuss them?
The Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) offers resources to assist faculty members and teaching assistants how to effectively handle these discussions. Two sessions are happening this week and others are available anytime online.
UK students and faculty, like many other people living in America right now, may be experiencing stress and even trauma from the perfect storm of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial violence and inequality, and the outcome of Tuesday’s election.
Topics related to the election may arise during class meetings or in other activities. How do faculty members talk about the election with students? What are ways faculty members can respond to possible tense moments that result from comments among students?
The CELT event “Responding to Tense Moments After the Election” will be online at noon Wednesday, Nov. 4. Visit https://www.uky.edu/tlai/events/responding-tense-moments-after-election for more information and to register.
CELT will also offer an event designed for graduate students and teaching assistants — “Supporting Students of Color as Graduate TAs and Instructors” — 12:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6. Visit https://www.uky.edu/tlai/events/supporting-students-color-graduate-tas-and-instructors for more information and to register.
Another resource, “Teaching Online in Times of Tension,” is located online here: https://uky.yuja.com/V/Video?v=1385075&node=5146478&a=825105573&autoplay=1.
CELT is part of Teaching, Learning and Academic Innovation and offers a wide array of resources for faculty and teaching assistants during the current instructional environment in the Teach Anywhere portal.