New racial equity course looks to help instructors identify, remove equity barriers to student success

Durham Technical Community College has launched a new racial equity initiative aimed at helping instructors identify and improve equity in the classroom.

College Teaching for Racial Equity is a six-week online course to support Durham Tech’s faculty in teaching more equitably. The course includes six focus points, including equity mindedness, the history of race in American education, understanding and utilizing racial equity gap data, address instructor-student relationship barriers, building relationships with students, and teaching strategies for closing equity gaps.

The Office of Institutional Equity and Inclusion and Academics and Guided Career Pathways at Durham Tech led the initiative to offer the course for Durham Tech instructors.
 
“The modules do a good job in explaining the difficult concepts regarding race and helping to define key concepts and filling in the gaps in education. I look to have a better understanding where the problems that we know are there and where the equity gaps come from and be a part of the solution,” said Jonathan Cook, an English and Communications Instructor at Durham Tech.

Cook is one of twelve faculty members who participated in the first pilot cohort at the College, which began on March 22. The cohort included instructors in areas across the College. Another participant, Towanna Morton, an Esthetician Instructor, stated she has been enjoying the course and found it very informative.

“Something brought me to tears last week,” said Morton. “We don’t think about other races and how they are affected. To see the struggle of other races besides my own was eye opening and learning about the historical challenges individuals had to go through.”

Dr. Courtnea Rainey, College Success Instructor and Teaching-Learning Center Coordinator, teaches the equity course. Rainey provides faculty with video lectures, video excerpts, and papers to study on their own time throughout the week. The material provides background and context information to prepare faculty for weekly synchronous meetings.

“Faculty bring personal experiences with race and academic expertise to the curriculum which makes the conversations very rich,” said Rainey.

The course is a part of the College’s Equity Action Plan that was released in Fall 2020. The goal of the course is to ensure students are taught by faculty trained to teach equitably.

“Self-reflection to unpack our own biases and microaggressions help us move into “equity in action” by integrating an equity-minded frame into classroom instruction and all other area of the college,” said Dr. Angela Davis, Affirmative Action Officer and Special Assistant to the President for Equity and Inclusion at Durham Tech.
 
To learn more about the initiative, contact Dr. Courtnea Rainey at raineyc@durhamtech.edu or Dr. Angela Davis at davisa@durhamtech.edu.

FOR MORE INFORMATION   
Desiree Towson, M.S.: Durham Tech Communications and Public Relations Coordinator at allisontowsond@durhamtech.edu