Theresa Hice-Fromille

Ph.D. candidate Theresa Hice-Fromille (Sociology, CRES, and Feminist Studies) advocates for justice-oriented teaching practices and more robust professional development for graduate student educators in her chapter, “Teaching for Black Girls: What Every Graduate Student Instructor Can Learn from Black Girlhood Studies” (2022).

A former CITL Graduate Pedagogy Fellow (2020) and GSI Peer Support Team member (2021), Hice-Fromille describes four pedagogical values that influenced her design choices for her course, “Race, Identity, & Belonging in the African Diaspora,” in UCSC’s Black Studies minor. This chapter, part of a volume of writing by and for graduate student instructors, identifies graduate students as particularly “significant catalysts for innovations in higher education teaching praxis,” and thus offers guidance to fellow instructors for enacting similar antiracist and pro-Black values in their teaching – across any discipline and any instructor social identities.

TLC Associate Director Kendra Dority connected with Hice-Fromille in January 2023 about her chapter to elevate this contribution to our campus community and to find out more about how her teaching has continued to evolve since she wrote the piece.

KD: First of all, sincere congratulations on the recent publication of your chapter, “Teaching for Black Girls.” I want to begin by asking about your experience writing it. What was your process, and how did it differ from or feel similar to producing other forms of scholarship? What was it like to treat your teaching as a site of research? 

THF: Thank you! It was a labor of love, and I am very proud to have it out in the world. It was important that this piece spoke to some of the ways that I think about teaching and learning, especially as they were formed from my personal experiences in the classroom.

The process began before instruction when I was building the curriculum, and during the course, while I was documenting my successes and challenges as an instructor. I was then able to use student feedback from SETS to further reflect on the techniques I had selected. In terms of collecting data, the process was very familiar to me. I am a community-engaged researcher, and I mainly conduct participant observations, so I am always accounting for my presence as well as other interactions occurring in a space.

Using my teaching as a site of research felt very comfortable, which I believe speaks to my being situated in Black Studies, as it posits that research, teaching, and lived experience should inform one another. This contradicts the Western European obsession with objectivity and is enhanced by a Black feminist emphasis on reflexivity. If I don’t slow down and observe the ways that my curricular choices are impacting students, then I’m not fulfilling my role as an educator and ensuring that actual learning — as opposed to other forms of curricular interaction, like memorization and reiteration — is taking place.

KD: That ability to integrate one’s research, teaching, and lived experiences feels especially important, given how your chapter points out that there is still work to do to provide graduate students with robust professional development in teaching. What role do you think professional development in teaching can play in helping grads to develop a more integrated sense of their identities as both scholars and educators?

THF: I appreciate professional development in teaching spaces for the time and space that they allow for playing with theories of learning and being creative with new ways of teaching. Teaching has made me a better scholar in that I have to slow down and learn what I need to explain to students. These professional development spaces are similar in that, within them, I have learned about how we learn. In doing so, I have learned a lot about myself as a learner, which has shaped the way that I engage with my students.

I think this is particularly important for first-generation graduate students of color who, perhaps, like me, have struggled in graduate school to find their footing because theoretically and pedagogically, we are left to our own devices. Realizing that this “sink or swim” approach is grounded in the same colonial racial capitalist system that our progressive university curricula critique was a bit shocking and frustrating. But it also motivated me to use these professional development spaces to reorient myself to better integrate course content (for example, antiracism) and pedagogical practice (i.e., ungrading). 

KD: Do you have any advice to share with fellow graduate students who are, like you, innovating in their teaching and may want to communicate about their findings with a larger community?

THF: Places like TLC and conference sessions with a pedagogical focus have been the most supportive spaces in which I have shared my work. My focus is both pro-Black and feminist, so I have sought feedback from similarly-minded instructors in my fields of study who are also innovating in teaching and grading practices. For students in the social sciences, there is a lot of support for this work within the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS). And each discipline has a pedagogical journal where you can submit your brilliant work!

KD: One of your arguments that excites me most is your expansion of more traditional course design models, like the “Understanding by Design” or “backward design” model. In particular, you explain how this model conceives of assessment as instructor-defined and “evades critical inquiry into educational standards and the responsibility of teachers to dismantle or otherwise challenge them.” One of the hallmarks of the “Race, Identity, & Belonging in the African Diaspora” course you write about is the use of contract grading, which focuses on student process and labor, and invites students to co-create the standards by which their work is assessed. Since you wrote the chapter, you’ve continued to use contract grading in your courses. What have you continued to learn about this assessment and grading practice? 

THF: With each course, I learn something new about contract grading! So, I also want to emphasize that I haven’t perfected contract grading by any means. What excites me is that with every course, I am collaborating with students to learn what part of the contract process works for them and which doesn’t. No group of students is the same, and the contract can be impacted greatly by the length of the course (ex: quarter vs. summer session), subject matter, and level (ex: lower division vs. upper division).

I like that I am providing a proposal for the contract, and students are editing, approving, and re-negotiating it. It takes the pressure off me to have all the answers. I know the course material and the research that supports particular pedagogical choices, but I don’t know what students know about themselves. They have to fill in those gaps and tell me what it is they think is feasible, what they want to learn, and what is relevant to their academic and life trajectories.

I have continued to learn different ways to judge whether an assignment was completed or not, but the emphasis is always on meeting task requirements and never on arbitrary goals. For example, when I started, I used an all-or-nothing approach, and if an assignment missed even one requirement, it was marked incomplete. I don’t take this approach anymore. I also use deadlines more, but I allow for multiple resubmissions so that students have the opportunity to improve upon assignments. 

KD: What advice do you have for others who are considering using this grading method? Similarly, what burning questions do you have for educators who already use contract grading in their courses?

THF: My biggest piece of advice is to remain flexible: Don’t get so attached to the idea of an assignment that you lose sight of the toll its completion is taking on your students. There are always modifications that can be made. 

I would love to chat with educators who have been using contract grading for years, just to hear about how they have altered their practice over time and whether they use the same contract for each class or if it is different each time like it is for me. I just want to share experiences!

KD: In many ways, your chapter proposes an important lineage for radical assessment practices like contract grading, tracing it to the possibilities presented in Black Studies and particularly in Black Girlhood Studies. What can instructors gain by understanding these connections and through-lines?

THF: I want to make it clear that I am not advocating that we make it easier to obtain high grades; rather, we reorient ourselves to de-link learning from grades and eventually forgo grades altogether. I say this upfront because there is a tendency among liberal non-Black teachers to underestimate Black students and, in a conservative parallel, others argue that “reverse racism” in education affords Black and other students of color privileges withheld from white students.

My pedagogy is pro-Black, in that I want my curricula and pedagogy to contribute to the ideological and physical reorganization of institutional space in favor of Black and Indigenous people and to the detriment of colonial racial capitalism. Grades have worked in favor of upholding this system. The whole idea of “giving” good grades — whether in a twisted altruistic sense or in an unfounded argument against affirmative action — is linked to the relationship between Black people and education as one that is undeserved: “Black people are undeserving because they are raw material/labor. Labor doesn’t need an education. And if labor doesn’t need an education, then pushout is justified.” So the argument that I make in the article to bring attention to educational pushout is really to draw out its particular role in a broader system of relations within colonial racial capitalism.

KD: When you think about the four pedagogical values you describe in the chapter — instructor responsibility, student agency, collaboration, and reflexivity — what would you say you are most proud of implementing? That is, which value and its associated practices have been most rewarding to implement, and why?

THF: Student agency is the value that students identify and articulate appreciation for the most clearly throughout the class and in their SETS. I associate this value with an ideological perspective that recognizes youth as capable subjects in the present, as opposed to limiting their capacity to the future. This latter perspective is most colloquially used, for example, when we say things like, “Youth are the future.” Yes, young people may become adults in the future, but they are present now, and we should respect, recognize, and encourage the ways that they enact agency. University students often enroll during young adulthood, primarily between the ages of 18 and 24. They are young, but they are not incapable of making decisions, and in fact, part of what they are doing at the university should be learning how to make decisions that will impact their life trajectory with the support of caring educators.

In order to implement practices that emphasize student agency, I have to first acknowledge my limitations. I began teaching independently after COVID began, and the pandemic is always a forethought for me as I write my syllabus. COVID has disrupted formal education in many more ways than I could account for. It has made the process of acknowledging my limitations more urgent because the social situations that my students are in are more urgent. At the same time, this urgency has helped me de-center myself and my ego, as I am constantly reminded that my class isn’t the most important thing in the world at any given moment. That helps me shift my goal from ensuring that the work gets done to ensuring that learning is happening.

Students really notice this and have commented that they feel that shift in the room that comes from me not taking it personally when they make decisions about the class based on what they know to be best for them. This isn’t to say that I don’t challenge them or ask if there is anything that I can do to help them accomplish their learning objectives, but the focus remains on their construction of a learning objective, not mine.

KD: You’ve been a leader on campus in supporting graduate students in developing their teaching and mentoring practices, such as through your leadership in TLC’s Graduate Pedagogy Fellows program and GSI Peer Support Team, and EOP’s Pathways to Research program. How have your experiences in programs like these had an impact on your own teaching and mentoring practices? What impact have these experiences had on your perspectives on the institution of higher education more broadly?

THF: I originally became involved in these programs because I lacked confidence in my teaching, but felt an obligation to be a good instructor. I graduated from a small state school, and before that, I had completed just one semester at a liberal arts college. I had no idea what a TA was or did, but I knew that I couldn’t stand in front of 60 students every week and waste their time making a fool of myself. Then once I started, I realized I could actually love teaching, and so I wanted to get better, not just out of fear but out of passion. I have honestly been surprised by how few graduate students have shared that they are also passionate about teaching. This isn’t to say that they aren’t good scholars, just that they are more, or only, really interested in the research aspect of their academic positions. But, again, because of my placement within Black Studies, I do not see these aspects — teaching and research — as separate. Even when I am researching, I am teaching or thinking of ways to incorporate field observations into my curriculum. Black Studies is still marginalized in the academy, and so is this way of thinking about teaching and research as interconnected.

While also underfunded and under-recognized, Pathways to Research is one program that I have worked with that demonstrates the incredible benefits to undergraduate and graduate students when this interconnection is emphasized. P2R has been a space of really brilliant student research development, but it has also been a space of support. Each year, mentors and mentees report that cohorts are their favorite aspects of the program. At first, I was surprised that grad mentors felt this way, but I think it reflects the level to which they take seriously a commitment to non-hierarchical relationships. The P2R mentorship structure that I led from 2019 through 2022 was grounded in student agency, and I used scholarship, such as from Dr. Torie Weiston-Serdan, to frame mentorship as a youth-led process in which mentors are meant to provide guidance through questions and suggestions.

Whether I pursue a faculty or non-academic research position after graduating this year, I feel confident that the roles I played in supporting grads in P2R and CITL have prepared me to mentor graduate-level and peer scholars. What I have learned from my involvement and leadership within these programs is that the goal of innovative grading practices or ungrading — that is, to re-focus on student learning — is actually evident when we turn to spaces outside of the classroom. There are no grades in P2R, and yet students set their learning goals and develop plans to achieve them with the support of their graduate student mentors. So, how can I make my classroom more like that? And how can I use my expertise — as a researcher, grant-writer, mentor, etc. — to support more campus programs that cultivate this kind of learning? That’s my next task!