You Don't Belong Here

You Don't Belong Here:
Countering Non-Belonging through Systems-Level Change

Many members of the higher education community are receiving messages that their identities, deeply-held commitments, and even research are no longer welcome. How can we advocate for and advance systems-level efforts to increase a felt sense of belonging for students, faculty, and staff?

This session centers around an embodied case study depicting one woman’s reflections on the messages–both in and outside of higher education–that insinuated she didn’t belong in the academy. Through session activities, participants consider how a range of exclusionary messages can contribute to a sense of non-belonging. They also identify context-specific systems-level changes that could meaningfully recognize differences within their communities while increasing belonging for those whose experiences are most unanticipated and overlooked.

This session is appropriate for faculty, graduate students, and academic leaders. The session can be offered in person or virtually in 60, 90, or 120 minute versions. It will be available throughout the academic year.

**The video performance portion of this session contains strong language and descriptions of stigmatizing behaviors and practices. Please reach out to a CRLT Players staff member for a fuller description of the content of this session.

In this session, participants will:

  • Consider the ways that institutional messaging can make individuals feel like outsiders to their own education and/or profession. 
  • Unpack the relationship between individual action and systems-level change.
  • Brainstorm systems-level changes that could increase belonging and promote successful outcomes.
What people have said about :
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.
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