A twenty-first-century teach-in for inclusion and justice: Co-curriculum at the intersections of scholarship, activism, and civic engagement

Abstract

The frequency and brutality of social injustices played out upon the personal, local, national, and global levels prompted a response from faculty and staff at Benedictine University that took the form of a Teach-In on Social Justice. It is presented here as a model to address the need for social justice education through high-impact learning practices, particularly for underrepresented and at-risk students. The Teach-In has developed into a co-curricular structure embedded within the university culture, and its annual program draws over 1,000 students, faculty, and staff on a racially and religiously diverse campus. Mission-centric and tied to the formal general education curriculum learning goals, the Teach-In is a collaborative undertaking of both the academic/curricular and student life areas of the university. This Teach-In model integrates scholarship, activism, and civic engagement with the goal of individual transformation and structural reform within the institution. In addition to conveying the mechanics of the Teach-In and arguing for its value as a permanent, institutional co-curricular structure, this chapter situates the Teach-In within influential discourses of social justice education concerning critical pedagogy, twenty-first-century liberal education, and US women of color feminism.