Abstract
Postsecondary educational institutions often struggle to enact their espoused commitments to inclusion. Faculty on temporary appointments and students traditionally underrepresented in and underserved by colleges and universities, in particular, can feel excluded. In this article, we argue that student–faculty pedagogical partnership can help postsecondary institutions better enact their espoused commitments to inclusion by nurturing rhizomatic development for human sustainability. We describe how a student–faculty pedagogical partnership program provides a brave space within which rhizomatic growth can unfold by offering an autoethnographic case study of one faculty–student pair who worked in a semester-long pedagogical partnership through this program. Their work aimed to affirm and extend inclusive practices in the faculty member’s STEM course, and the unexpected intertwining of their paths also served to foster a sense of inclusion for both partners. After an introductory discussion of the partnership program, definition of rhizomatic growth as we use it, and an explanation of our method, the faculty and student partners present their autoethnographic case study by alternating their voices. We focus our discussion and recommendations on how partnership supports rhizomatic growth, inclusion, resistance to hegemony, and human sustainability. Finally, we propose possible directions for future research in each of these areas.
Highlights
Many postsecondary education institutions articulate a commitment to inclusion but struggle with how to enact it for all their community members
We offer the story in the form of an autoethnographic case study of Jamie Becker, a faculty member in a STEM field who was on a visiting appointment at Haverford College during the 2019–2020 academic year, and Alexis Giron, an undergraduate student at Bryn Mawr College on the pre-medicine track who completed a major in psychology and a minor in neuroscience in May 2020 and who identifies as a first-generation, low-income, Afro-Latina
We contextualize this case study by describing the Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) program and defining what we mean by rhizomatic growth in this context, and we offer an overview of our autoethnographic method
Summary
Many postsecondary education institutions articulate a commitment to inclusion but struggle with how to enact it for all their community members. The first part of our title, “While We Are Here”, aims to capture the simultaneous sense of disconnected transience and deep human engagement that interim faculty and students from underserved backgrounds can experience Members of both groups can feel transient because of the duration of their stay and because they do not feel that they belong or are part of the community. The autoethnographic case study alternates between Alexis’s and Jamie’s voices and maps how they developed their partnership Both our discussion and Sustainability 2020, 12, 6782 our recommendations focus on how partnership supports rhizomatic growth, inclusion, resistance to hegemony, and human sustainability, and we note possible directions for future research concerning all of these
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