Raising institutional awareness and pedagogical sensitivity: An analysis of college faculty participation in seed training

Abstract

Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) is a national, peer-led professional development program that promotes change through self-reflection and interpersonal dialogue, with the goals of widening and deepening school and college curricula and making communities more inclusive. This study examines a Christian university in the coastal Western United States which is currently in the fifth year of its own version of SEED conversations involving over fifty percent of the college’s full-time faculty. In order to assess the outcomes of SEED training, the authors conducted a survey of faculty who completed the program. This paper will present an overview of the benefits and issues with SEED training for faculty in higher education and discuss preliminary results of the SEED program assessment.