CRLT's Coordinator of Multicultural Teaching and Learning Services and other professional staff develop and facilitate a variety of customized programs (e.g., workshops, retreats) that address multicultural issues in specific academic contexts. The planning of these programs is typically done in collaboration with faculty and/or graduate students who are members of the college or department that has requested the service. CRLT also provides campus-wide workshops and individual consultations for faculty and GSIs to help them serve the learning needs of UM's diverse student body. These services address multicultural topics such as transforming course content, creating and maintaining inclusive classroom environments, and expanding pedagogical techniques to be more inclusive of different styles of learning and to facilitate the achievement of all students. CRLT also maintains a set of resources (books and articles, in-house publications, videotapes) to support multicultural teaching and learning. Contact CRLT (via e-mail at crlt@umich.edu or via phone at 734-764-0505) for information.
See also:
Services for Faculty and GSIs
Consultations
Any faculty member or GSI can make an individual appointment to discuss multicultural teaching-related concerns (creating inclusive classroom environments, transforming courses to become more multicultural, expanding pedagogical techniques to accommodate a range of learning styles, etc.). All consultations are confidential.
Seminars on Multicultural Teaching and Learning
CRLT offers seminars on a range of multicultural teaching and learning topics. These seminars are led by CRLT staff, UM faculty and GSIs. CRLT has also invited faculty speakers from other campuses to share their expertise on this topic. Multicultural seminars appear in orientations for faculty and for GSIs, the campus-wide seminar series, and as part of customized programming for individual academic units. Seminars that are specific to a unit are developed in consultation with a faculty steering committee (see Customized Programs and Faculty Retreats). Past seminar topics have included:
- Learning that Challenges Students' Values and Assumptions
- Writing Successful Grant Proposals for Multicultural Initiatives
- Exploring Issues in Multicultural Teaching
- Fundamentals of Academic Service Learning
- Teaching Students with Disabilities
- Engaging Students in Critical Thinking About the World as They Know It
- UM Students Talk About the Climate for Learning
- Who Am I and How Am I Seen in the Classroom?
- Culture of American Classrooms at the University of Michigan
- Dealing with Student Resistance
- Teaching Controversial Course Material
Grants for multicultural teaching and learning fund individual faculty members and groups of faculty who want to foster inclusivity in the classroom and in academic units, or revise their courses and curricula to include multicultural content.
Support for experienced multicultural practitioners to advance and support UM’s public role in a diverse democracy. This support often takes the form of consultations concerning research projects on multiculturalism in higher education, and assessment and research on effective and successful multicultural practice. CRLT also seeks to cultivate mutual ties across campus to maintain a supportive community of scholars who are aware of one another’s efforts, share resources and strategies, and seek to enhance multicultural education. Besides bringing instructors together across units, CRLT maintains a collection of multicultural teaching and learning resources – such as books, articles, and videotapes – that may be utilized by the UM community.
