Convocation 2024

From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Our Shared Responsibility for Student Success

Thursday, April 25, 2024 | 5:30 – 8:00 PM | University Center

Tia Brown McNair

The 2024 keynote presenter will be Tia Brown McNair, AAC&U Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers.

What are promising strategies for equity-minded teaching and the design of high-impact practices that will prepare students for higher levels of academic and social mobility? How do we measure progress towards equity goals through an inquiry-based lens that centers the “how” and the “why” behind student success data? This presentation will provide campus examples and practical guidance on how to move from talking about equity to building the capacity for becoming equity-minded educators and leaders to support the success of all students.

About the Speaker

Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices (HIPs), and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on HIPs and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers. She serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the co-author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition). McNair is the editor of Strengthening Campus Communities Through the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Framework that will be published by Routledge in June 2024. In May 2023, McNair received an honorary degree from Franklin Pierce University for her national work to dismantle a false belief in a hierarchy of human value and for her efforts to advance racial equity to support the success of all students. NASPA, the association of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, named McNair the 2024 recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Award.

Convocation 2023

Liberation Pedagogy: bell hooks and Teaching/Learning as Emancipatory Practice

Thursday April 27, 2023 | 5:45 – 7:30 PM

Reception at 5:00 & Lecture at 5:45 | University Center
Jody Greene, TLC Founding Director

UC Santa Cruz’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) held our 2023 Convocation featuring Founding Director Jody Greene. From its foundation, the TLC has drawn inspiration and wisdom from the work of the late bell hooks, educational visionary and early proponent of active and activist learning. According to hooks, our practices of teaching and learning can and should be as transformative and revolutionary as what we teach. More than three decades ago, not long after she finished her graduate work on this campus, hooks offered us a roadmap to transform educational practice to be equitable, student-centered, relationship-rich, and dynamically engaged. In this talk, Jody revisited hooks’ influence on recent efforts to reshape teaching and learning at UC Santa Cruz as it takes up the challenge of being a genuinely minority-serving institution.

In June, Founding Director Jody Greene will be stepping down to make way for new leadership for the Center in the next phase of its evolution.

This program is made possible by generous funding and support from UCSC’s Executive Vice Chancellor/Campus Provost and is co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute.

About the Speaker

Jody Greene came to UC Santa Cruz in 1998 and has served as Professor of Literature, Feminist Studies, and the History of Consciousness. Their research interests include seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British literature; non-dualist Western philosophy, especially the work of Spivak, Derrida, and Nancy; human rights and international law; queer studies; and the history of literary discourse and literary institutions.

Recent publications include a collection, co-edited with Sharif Youssef, The Hostile Takeover: Human Rights after Corporate Personhood (Toronto, 2020), and op-eds in publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. They are the recipient of the UCSC Humanities Division John Dizikes Teaching Award (2008), the Disability Resource Center Champion of Change Award (2018), and, twice, of the UCSC Academic Senate Excellence in Teaching Award (2001, 2014). In 2016, they were appointed the founding Director of the Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning (CITL), and they now serve as UCSC’s first Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning. In 2021, they were appointed Special Advisor to the CP/EVC for Educational Equity and Academic Success.


Convocation 2022

Co-sponsored by the Vera Rubin Chair for Diversity in Astronomy

The Problem with Diversity and Inclusion

Wednesday April 27, 2022 | 5:15 – 7:30 PM

University Center
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

On the evening of Wednesday, April 27th, CITL is excited to celebrate its sixth annual convocation with a talk by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein.

About the Speaker

On the evening of Wednesday, April 27th, CITL is excited to celebrate its sixth annual convocation with a talk by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and core faculty in women’s and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. She is also a columnist for New Scientist and Physics World. Her research in theoretical physics focuses on cosmology, neutron stars, and dark matter. She also does research in Black feminist science, technology, and society studies. Nature recognized her as one of 10 people who shaped science in 2020, and Essence magazine has recognized her as one of “15 Black Women Who Are Paving the Way in STEM and Breaking Barriers.” A cofounder of Particles for Justice, she received the 2017 LGBT+ Physicists Acknowledgement of Excellence Award for her contributions to improving conditions for marginalized people in physics and the 2021 American Physical Society Edward A. Bouchet Award for her contributions to particle cosmology. Originally from East L.A., she divides her time between the New Hampshire Seacoast and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She recently published her first book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, with Bold Type Books in March 2022.


Convocation 2021

Five Year Anniversary: Practicing Equity with Fidelity to Racial Justice

Wednesday, April 14, 2021 | 5:30–8:00 PM | Remote via Zoom

Estela Bensimon

A keynote address by Estela Bensimon with opening remarks by UCSC Chancellor Cynthia Larive and Campus Provost / Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Kletzer

In celebration of CITL’s 5th Annual Convocation, CITL and the HSI Initiatives are honored to present a talk by renowned equity pioneer Estela Bensimon. Considered a Higher Ed legend, Bensimon has published extensively about equity, organizational learning, practitioner inquiry, and institutional change, including 2019’s From Equity Talk to Equity Walk, which she coauthored.

The good news is that the word “equity” is no longer feared, as was the case two decades ago, when people felt more comfortable with diversity talk. On the other hand, the popular appropriation of “equity” risks being whitewashed and decoupled from racial justice. Professor Bensimon will speak about engaging in everyday practices guided by racial equity as corrective justice, anti-racist action, and decentering of whiteness.

Co-sponsored by UCSC’s HSI Initiatives and the Division of Student Affairs and Success.


Convocation 2020

Quantified Education: Unpacking What We’re Tracking

Jacqueline Wernimont

Please see Jacqueline Wernimont’s statement regarding postponement.

This event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, you can still watch Professor Wernimont’s talk at the 2021 Data Science Day.

The same hopes that have landed FitBits on millions of wrists, Rings on thousands of doors, and Echoes in so many homes have brought us the latest in educational technologies. These hopes include better support of ourselves, our goals, and our dreams for success, health, and safety. As universities and colleges increasingly buy into smart systems for grading, tracking attendance, monitoring student and employee wellness, and more, we also need to reckon with the costs – human, fiscal, and environmental – of these innovations in education. We’ve got the Quantified Self, the Quantified Home, even the Smart/Quantified City — what does it mean that we now have Quantified Education?


Convocation 2019

How to be a Kickass STEM Learner

Thursday, April 11, 2019 | 5:30 PM | Kresge Town Hall

The Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning welcomed Professor Bryan Dewsbury, a leading proponent of inclusive teaching, active learning, and community-building in academia, for the 2019 Convocation, “How to Be a Kickass STEM Learner.”

Professor Dewsbury engaged with UC Santa Cruz students, faculty, and staff about effective learning strategies and the significance of inclusive learning environments, especially in STEM courses, in order to support the UC Santa Cruz community to address equity and community-building in the curriculum.

Co-sponsored by the Academic Excellence Program (ACE), Baskin School of Engineering, Division of Student Success, First-Gen Initiative, Genomics Institute Office of Diversity, Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Initiatives, HHMI Active Learning Initiative, Learning Support Services (LSS), Mathematics Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), Poodry Diversity, SACNAS – UCSC Chapter, and STEM Diversity Programs.


Convocation 2018

The New Education

Thursday, March 1, 2018 | 5:00 PM | University Center

The Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning and The Humanities Institute welcomed Cathy N. Davidson, Distinguished Professor of English and Founding Director of the Futures Initiative at the Graduate Center, CUNY, for the 2018 Annual Convocation, “The New Education.”

In her keynote, Davidson invited participants to consider how they might transform their teaching to encourage engaged, activist learning and to prepare students for an age of constant change.

Read about Cathy Davidson’s talk: “Author calls on faculty to reimagine higher education”

Co-sponsored by the Arts Division, Physical & Biological Sciences Division, Baskin School of Engineering, Student Achievement & Equity Innovation, Literature Department, History Department, Social Sciences Division, Sociology Department, Philosophy Department, and Chicano Latino Research Center.


Convocation 2017

Teaching Across Cultural Strengths

Thursday, May 18, 2017 | 6:00 PM | University Center
Susan Longerbeam

CITL celebrated its inaugural convocation on May 18, 2017 with a visit from UCSC alumna Susan Longerbeam (Merrill College, ’84), a specialist in classroom cultural climate. In her keynote, Longerbeam, Associate Professor of Educational Counseling Psychology at the University of Louisville, emphasized how taking into account the diverse cultural origins of students and instructors in classroom settings can improve teaching and enhance learning. Read more about the 2017 Convocation at the University Newscenter.

Last modified: Dec 18, 2024