Staff Reads (non-fiction) is open to any person employed by UW Tacoma in any capacity. SIGN UP HERE.
What is Staff Reads? Inspired by the UW Tacoma Strategic Plan and Real Lit[erature], Staff Reads is a collaboration between the Center for Equity and Inclusion, The Center for Student Involvement, and the UW Tacoma Library. The reading group seeks to create greater awareness and discussion of the experiences being had by our students, staff, and community members.
By interacting with non-fiction texts that discuss different issues being faced in our community, the reading group provides opportunities to dialogue and learn from each other. Additional benefits have included creating community by reducing isolation, and enhancing campus education through peer-based discussion groups.
Spring Quarter 2021, we will be reading Sonya Ardoin and becky martinez’ book, Straddling Class in the Academy: 26 Stories of Students, Administrators, and Faculty From Poor and Working-Class Backgrounds and Their Compelling Lessons for Higher Education Policy and Practice:
Why do we feel uncomfortable talking about class? […] How does discriminatory language, or how do conscious or unconscious derogatory attitudes, or the anticipation of such behaviors, impact those from poor and working class backgrounds when they straddle class?
Through 26 narratives of individuals from poor and working class backgrounds – ranging from students, to multiple levels of administrators and faculty, both tenured and non-tenured – this book provides a vivid understanding of how people can experience and straddle class in the middle, upper, or even elitist class contexts of the academy. […]
The book opens by setting the foundation by examining definitions of class, discussing its impact on identity, and summarizing the literature on class and what it can tell us about the complexities of class identity, its fluidity, sometimes performative nature, and the sense of dissonance it can provoke.
This book brings social class identity to the forefront of our consciousness, conversations, and behaviors and compels those in the academy to recognize classism and reimagine higher education to welcome and support those from poor and working class backgrounds. –Description from the publisher.
SIGN UP HERE for Spring Quarter 2021 Staff Reads.
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To request disability accommodation, including American Sign Language interpretation, contact the Disability Resources for Students office at 253-692-4508, drsuwt@uw.edu or submit a request at http://www.tacoma.uw.edu/UWTDRS/eventaccess. Please contact Johanna Jacobsen Kiciman at jmjk@uw.edu if you want to arrange for Zoom accommodation.