The current historical moment demands accountability. To understand the racialized misinformation and disinformation surrounding current events—the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson and the spread of the QAnon conspiracy, to take just two recent examples—knowledge workers must be able to account for the history of mediated representation of racism that informs and sustains these tropes, these frames for viewing race in today’s hyper-partisan, polarized climate. This workshop takes seriously the assumption that to effectively recognize, analyze, and intervene in information pollution in all its multifarious guises, including those that traffic in racist tropes and narratives, students and teachers and others who are fighting for racial justice must become more attuned to the mediated representations of the past: the narratives, images, tropes, and memes, including those found in media and advertising, that everywhere and always color Black Americans’ experience of the American democratic experiment.

Over the course of this interactive pre-conference workshop, we will (1) offer examples of these mediated representations of racism and delve into their history; (2) explore images and discuss how these representations shape what Phillips and Milner (2021) call the “deep memetic frames” of contemporary information disorder (i.e., disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation) (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017); and (3) provide annotated writing prompts and project assignments that help students develop critical thinking and digital literacy skills that can help them not only recognize contemporary examples, but also unpack the historical roots of racist misinformation in American public life. A portion of our time together during this workshop will be used to view a short documentary on representations of race in media and advertising. Presented by Paul Cook (Indiana University Kokomo) and Byron Craig (Illinois State University).

AASCU’s The American Democracy Project presents a pre-conference session to help democracy thrive through deliberation. The session will explore and practice deliberative dialogues and moderation. Deliberative dialogues are guided conversations on a political, controversial, or wicked topic; they aim to push beyond polarizing positions, find common ground and shared values, humanize stakeholders, uncover nuance, and potentially provide a solution-focused approach to addressing complicated issues. In this workshop, participants will learn what deliberative dialogues are and aren’t, practice moderating a session, and explore some resources to bring back home. This is a 3-hour workshop for faculty, staff, and students at higher education institutions led by Steven Koether (Sam Houston State), Kara Lindaman (Winona State), and Harriett Steinbach (Illinois State).

Are you concerned about the growing lack of empathy we are witnessing across multiple levels of our culture, including personal interaction, group communication, and political discourse? This workshop will expose participants to various aspects of Illinois State University’s sponsored colloquia series, and the impacts they had on viewers. The final, culminating colloquium took place as commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre of 1921. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss colloquium speakers and how this information collected can be used to create a national movement to expanding empathy in a collective movement. An online diary system will allow participants to record their reactions to the YouTube video prior to the workshop, and then keep track of their views on empathy following the workshop. Participants will explore (1) extending empathy into infrastructures and the neuroscience of empathy, (2) the dangers and pitfalls of extending empathy to traumatized persons, (3) empathy and racial identity development, (4) reducing the moral empathy gap in political conversation, (5) why we often find it hard to listen to others, (6) the difficulty of extending empathy to those we would rather avoid, and (7) the first-person experience of extending as well as being denied, empathy. Led by the Illinois State University team of J. Scott Jordan, Stephen Hunt, Byron Craig, and Nathan Carpenter.

As institutions seek to become more student-centered, a critically important question is how do we incorporate the students’ voices and experiences in higher education? Institutional outcomes and students’ educational experiences can be improved when students’ voices are included throughout the student life cycle and in decision-making. Join AASCU colleagues as we explore approaches to capturing and operationalizing students’ voices to strengthen equity and democracy at our institutions.

Indigenous Peoples & the Wakan Tipi Center    

Lower Phalen Creek Project (LPCP) staff, led by executive director Maggie Lorenz (Turtle Lake Band of Ojibwe/Spirit Lake Dakota) will guide a tour of the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. This habitat restoration site contains the now-desecrated and ancient cave Wakáŋ Tipi, which means Dwelling Place of the Sacred in the Dakota language. LPCP will share its vision for reclaiming the sanctuary as a sacred site and creating a new gathering place for cultural learning, celebration and exchange, also named Wakáŋ Tipi Center. We will visit Gatherings Café, a restaurant inside the American Indian Center in Minneapolis, on the return to the hotel; lunch not included in price.

Generating Campus and Community Food Security

This exploration of food security partnerships in and around Metropolitan State is aimed at inspiring ways to build similar connections in participants’ home campuses and communities. The visit will feature walks through produce gardens managed by faculty, students and our lead community partner Urban Roots, discussion of the campus Food for Thought Food Pantry and food distribution partnerships, and a tour of the recently-completed GROW-IT Center facility, which has served as a hub for community-university learning and exchange on urban food production, healthy food access and environmental restoration. Urban Roots youth interns, guided by a local chef, will prepare our meal!

This site visit is sponsored by the generous contribution of Chartwells Higher Ed.