You Don't Belong Here

You Don't Belong Here:
The Stories Our Systems Tell (and Why We Have to Disrupt Them)

There is a widespread story that institutions of higher education value diversity and will actively foster belonging for all in the community. In actuality, though, many members of the higher education community continue to face marginalization and othering within their professional and educational spaces. This session centers around an embodied case study depicting one woman’s reflections on her experiences of higher education that sent a persistent, systemic message that she didn’t belong. Through session activities, participants will consider how these messages manifest and why they continue to occur despite the extensive labor of individuals sincerely committed to advancing equity. Together, they brainstorm possibilities for changes that could increase equity at a systems level. This session is appropriate for faculty, graduate students, and academic leaders.

This session can be offered in a fully virtual, synchronous format (90 minutes) or a fully in-person synchronous format (120 minutes). It will be available in November and December 2024.


**The video performance portion of this session contains strong language. It includes explicit descriptions of racist and classist behaviors and the impact of systemic inequities on individuals and communities.
 

 

In this session, participants will:

  • Consider the way that stories of non-belonging and exclusion are perpetuated in the U.S. education system.
  • Unpack the relationship between individual action and systems-level change.
  • Brainstorm systems-level changes that could make higher education more equitable.
What people have said about You Don't Belong Here :
Wonderful workshop and wonderfully executed. Probably the best run virtual workshop I've attended. Very clear in instructions. Made great use of time. Made space for people to feel and grow. Absolutely wonderful.
Powerful session with great content in the videos and rich discussions/thought-provoking reflections
Excellently well acted and well written monologue. I think it was very helpful to stop and have focused discussion sessions after each section regarding how we can systematically make things better with regard to each circumstance.
I've been to a few [CRLT Players sessions] and I always find them really useful in understanding my own experience and thinking about what I can do to help improve the institution for future students.
Thank you for a thorough and useful session. I especially appreciate how the monologue concretizes more academic, esoteric concepts.
Really excellent facilitation in asking us to get concrete/specific about how to put in place interventions into the dominant narratives about belonging/learning
This session shed new light and insights and was very well done. I really appreciated the opportunity to ethically and respectfully hear the story of a minoritized woman. I have a few takeaways for things I can do right now to affect systems and do better in the learning spaces I help create, and the session was so affirming for the work I'm doing that is not "on the books" or incentivized to advocate for systems changes for equity and inclusion. I feel a renewed sense of how important it is that I do this work, use my voice and platform, and advocate for it to become valued by the institution.
I believe this training is so important and will both encourage peers to pursue these workshops and look to get involved in DEI positions as a way to go from individual to systems level participation in dismantling problematic narratives of belonging.
Click here to visit our What the Audience Is Saying page to read more.
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