Teaching while Black: Navigating Race and Racism within Higher Education

Indigenous academics play a critical role in embedding Indigenous perspectives and knowledges within the curriculum, however the task of teaching can be a source of stress, particularly in encountering hostile and resistant students. While these challenges are increasingly recognized, there has been a limited response from a teaching and learning perspective about how to navigate race and racism within the classroom. The purpose of this Symposium is to identify culturally safe pedagogies for Indigenous educators tasked with teaching Indigenous knowledges and perspectives within Australian Universities.

Guest speakers include:

Deconstructing Racism: Strategies for individual transformation and organisational change

Professor Dennis McDermott & Mr David Sjoberg (Flinders University)

Teaching Indigenous Studies: Considering racialized assemblages and the Indigenous educator’s body in tutoring spaces

Mrs Faye Rosas-Blanch (Flinders University)

Assemblage of ‘Black Pedagogy’: Who should have the last word?

Mr Todd Fernando (The University of Melbourne)

‘Good in the Hood’ or ‘Burn It Down’: Reconciling Black Presence in the Academy

Dr Chelsea Bond & Dr Bryan Mukandi (The University of Queensland)

While the focus of this Symposium is on the experiences and practices of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander educators involved in teaching Indigenous knowledges within an Australian University, it is also open to non-Indigenous educators.

Morning Tea and Lunch will be provided and there are limited tickets available, so please register as soon as possible to secure your ticket. We also anticipate that there will be a waiting list for this event, so if you are no longer able to attend after ordering your ticket, please let us know so that we may release your ticket to those on the waiting list.

The event will be run as a Slice of LIME Professional Development Seminar. It will be streamed live on the web, with a chat function for those participating off-site. If you would like to view the online live streaming of the Symposium, please contact h.kajlich@uq.edu.au for more information. The forum will also be recorded and uploaded to YouTube for later viewing.

This event is co-hosted by the University of Queensland and the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne.

Support for this Fellowship has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views in this Fellowship do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.

Please register for this event at the website.