Transgressive Learning Communities: Transformative Spaces for Underprivileged, Underserved, and Historically Underrepresented Graduate Students at Their Institutions

Abstract

In this paper we propose a new vision of educational development that reimagines how graduate instructors are socialized and professionalized in academic settings. We describe a Transgressive Learning Community (TLC) that empowers graduate instructors with tools to reveal, mitigate, and disrupt oppressive structures in higher education. Our learning community is founded on critical race and feminist conceptualizations of pedagogical inquiry in its design, implementation, and assessment to serve underprivileged, underserved, and historically underrepresented graduate students. We argue that the intersections of marginalized and graduate student identities create distinct experiences of discrimination, marginalization, tokenism, isolation, and impostor syndrome due to a lack of sustained teaching mentorship within the academy. The Transgressive Learning Community model that we propose in this paper functions to create spaces of transgressive and transformational pedagogical engagement for graduate students who exist at the intersections of these identities.

Navigating Challenges and Teaching Through Lived Experiences as Graduate Student Instructors

“…Incorporating scholarship of teaching and learning into graduate level courses also helps promote reflective practices and collaboration between faculty and graduate students (Auten and Twigg 2015). These communities have shown more long-term effectiveness than one-time teaching workshops and other short-term trainings (Drane et al 2019).…”

“…We do this to do our small part in dismantling current systems of marginalization and oppression within commonly used teaching and learning methods (Skallerup Bessette 2014). One aim of this paper is to once again call on institutions to re-organize their resources and teaching structures in order to take the extra burden off of already marginalized instructors through formal communities like the ones mentioned above (see Drane et al 2019, Glisson et al 2014, and hooks 19942003).…”

“…The strategies and ideas we have discussed thus far are intentional efforts to de-center heteropatriarchal whiteness (DeChavez 2018; Drane et al 2019), establish a sense of community in the classroom, be anti-racist (Bakan and Dua 2014; Lawrence and Dua 2005;López 2003), and be inclusive to all. It is not enough to simply mention one scholar of color during lecture, say that racism is bad, or teach without making sure to accommodate all student's needs even if they are not requested or documented.…”

“…Although it is beyond the scope of this article to offer step-by-step program solutions, we advocate that departments and graduate programs ensure the space for GSIs and faculty to have these conversations. A combination of structured and informal settings where instructors of all levels can discuss challenges and share strategies on how to navigate relatable instructor experiences should be part of GSI pedagogical training, as suggested by previous scholars such as Drane et al (2019) and Auten and Twigg (2015). This should be done in a way that does not make a GSI feel incompetent or less than, as these are not individual problems or flaws, but rather structural issues that come with the territory of being an instructor.…”

Social and Professional Impact of Learning Communities Within the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Program at Michigan State University

“…Though institutions at the department level offer formal and informal programs for the development of future faculty, many are purely focused on the development of specific skills like teaching or the development of teaching philosophy and portfolios ( Viall et al, 2008 ). Many students have shown that for BIPOC students, learning communities that address both the professional skill building as well as their unique experiences associated with their personal identity, can lead to higher retention rates ( Tull et al, 2012 ; Drane et al, 2019 ).…”