Faculty Interest Groups

Social Justice Pedagogies

I want to suggest to you that personal success devoid of meaningfulness, free of a steady commitment to social justice, that’s more than a barren life, it is a trivial one.

- Toni Morrison, Commencement Address, Rutgers, 2011

Is Morrison right? Is life barren and trivial without “a steady commitment to social justice” ? And, if so, should our students be satisfied with a university education devoid of ties to social justice?  Should they be satisfied with a university education that fails to bring them face to face with the political challenges facing today’s world and considerations of what we, as citizens, can do about them?
Maureen
Maureen Fadem (English)

In this FIG, facilitated by Maureen Fadem (English), we will be thinking about social justice in/and pedagogy, broadly conceived, from three areas of inquiry: teaching social justice as praxis (developing leaders and a civic/state engagement ethic); teaching social justice content (histories and structures of injustice and the struggles to challenge and repair them); and the role of the university in the world and in the lives of students.

For more information or to join, please contact Maureen (maureen.fadem@kbcc.cuny.edu) and please see our work on the CUNY Academic Commons.