In the face of climate change, environmental injustice, gun violence, pandemics, mass migrations, and other challenges, liberal arts education is more essential than ever. How might liberal arts faculty prepare students for the Age of Disaster? Dr. Madsen suggests the answer lies within a diverse constellation of practices, among them developing students’ maker competencies, committing even more deeply to interdisciplinarity, designing for inclusivity in courses and programs, and rooting out subtle and not-so-subtle departmental and institutional white supremacies.

1. T E A C H I N G
IN THE AGE OF
DISASTER
Designing Liberal Arts Education
for Inclusivity—and Survival

3. • We need to be graduating creative,
courageous, resourceful, and resilient
humans.
• We need to welcome all perspectives, all
voices, all bodies.
• We still think too narrowly about student
identity.
• We have a white supremacy problem.
My argument, part 1:

4. • We need to address these white
supremacies in every unit and at every level
of the institution.
• Teaching in the Age of Disaster requires us
to at once reinvest deeply in the liberal arts
and rethink their connections to knowledge,
skills, and vocation.
My argument, part 2:

5. • inclusion and exclusion on campus
• investment in white supremacist thinking
(and other forms of discrimination)
• strategies for inclusivity
• useful philosophy: maker competencies
A road map for this talk

6. In the 1990s, one institution alienated me
by excluding others.

12. So I left.

16. Language
requirements
What “counts” for
promotion
Student
representation
Examples

17. Wait. . .wasn’t this talk supposed
to be about teaching?

19. One approach: maker competencies

20. Identify the need to invent, design, fabricate, build,
repurpose, repair, or create a new derivative of some
“thing” in order to express an idea or emotion, to solve a
problem, and/or teach a concept.

21. • Assess the availability and appropriateness of tools and
materials.
• Produce prototypes using itera:ve design principles.
• Collaborate effec:vely.
• Translate technical or disciplinary jargon so that it’s useful to
laypeople.
• Connect those seeking to learn something with those who
have relevant experience.
• Be mindful of the spectrum of cultural, economic,
environmental, and social issues surrounding making.
• Weigh the costs & benefits of seeking intellectual property
protec:ons vs. making project outputs open and freely
available to others.

22. Find student projects at http://inhershoes.idahohistory.org/

23. Let’s review.

24. Questions?
Additional relevant resources:
http://bit.ly/teaching-age-of-disaster
Leslie Madsen
Director, IDEA Shop and Associate Professor of History
Boise State University
lmadsen@boisestate.edu
Twitter: @lesliemb