Promoting Belonging in Diverse Classrooms

Tuesday, July 18, 2023 - In this special episode of the Future U Podcast, hosts Michael Horn and Jeff Selingo engage in a lively conversation with faculty members Crystal White from the University of Memphis, and Stephanie Speicher from Weber State University. The discussion, sponsored by Course Hero and recorded live during their annual summit, revolves around the need for leadership, connection, relevance, and a culture of care in higher education. The podcast delves into the importance of creating a diverse and inclusive environment in the classroom, as well as the disparity between the racial and ethnic diversity of faculty and students in U.S colleges and universities.

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Transcript

Sponsor:

Earn continuing education units this spring with Teaching Practice, an online faculty development program from Course Hero. Over a series of asynchronous courses, you'll uncover new ways to leverage tech in the classroom and build inclusive curriculum, all while supporting your own wellbeing. Plus, you'll get weekly office hour support from leading instructors. Enroll for free today at education.coursehero.com. Subscribe to Future U wherever you get your podcasts, and if you enjoy the show, share it with your friends so others can discover the conversations we're having about higher education.

Michael Horn:

I'm Michael Horn.

Jeff Selingo:

And I'm Jeff Selingo. Welcome to Future U. I'm excited that we're able to bring you this bonus episode together in partnership with one of our season long sponsors, Course Hero. We're recording this episode in front of a live virtual audience at Course Hero's annual summit, Michael.

Michael Horn:

That's right, Jeff. We're not only excited to be recording an episode during a virtual conference, but today we also get to dive into two topics that connect to something that, Jeff, you talk about often, namely the importance of belonging and the success equation at colleges and universities. We get to have this conversation with two faculty members who aren't just going to talk about the question of engaging students, but also what this looks like at the faculty level for professors who have been historically underrepresented in academia.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, Michael, while the racial and ethnic diversity of college faculty in the US has increased over the past two decades, faculty are still much more likely to be white. About three-quarters of post-secondary faculty members in the US are white compared with about half of undergraduates, so there's this disparity between the two groups. Michael, this came into stark contrast a few years ago when I was asked to speak at the convocation at New Jersey City University. When they asked the students to stand, the majority of the students were students of color, and they were in the middle of the audience where the faculty were mostly white. As one of the students who as Black told me afterwards, it wasn't until her senior year that she had a Black professor in one of her courses.

To discuss this divide and what impact it has on belonging in the classroom and how it impacts teaching and learning, we're welcoming two faculty members today to the virtual stage here at the Course Hero summit. First we have Crystal White. Crystal is an associate professor of teaching at the University of Memphis, and we'll be talking with her about what's needed to recruit and retain faculty members who have historically been underrepresented in academia. We also have Stephanie Speicher, who is the associate professor in teacher education at Weber State University in Utah. She's going to help us unpack this question of how to better engage students at colleges and universities, which of course is a theme we've come back to repeatedly this year on the podcast. Crystal and Stephanie, welcome to Future U.

Stephanie Speicher:

It's great to be here.

Crystal White:

Indeed, it is. Thank you for having us.

Michael Horn:

Well, we're excited. Before we dive into the meat of the conversation, if you will, we want to start with a question that we love to ask guests, but candidly, we haven't had the chance to do so in recent episodes. But it's a question that I think, given our topics, is quite pertinent here. We'd love you to share your own paths into working in higher education. Crystal, why don't you kick us off?

Crystal White:

All right, so how do we all begin, right? I believe that it begins with a passion, and when thinking about my path into higher ed, I guess I can say it started when I was really, really young. I lined up all my stuffies and the dolls and had a fake chalkboard right in front of me, and they were engaging, they were raising their hands, the whole nine. I mean, it was just me by myself, but my students were participating and I was engaging with them. I was learning from them. It was very reciprocal. I can say that my path into higher ed actually started with a passion that's real deep into my childhood, and it's just continued to grow ever since. I'm in ed, psych and research, and I've beautifully married both my passion for education and psychology in the work that I do. Thank you for asking.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, that's an amazing story. Stephanie, why don't you tell us about your path into higher ed?

Stephanie Speicher:

Yeah. I'm sitting here chuckling because instead of using my stuffies, I used my siblings. I think it is. It's a passion that leads us to a place where we really want to make an impact. For me, I started my teaching career 30 years ago as a high school history teacher. At that time, I had the opportunity to engage in some professional development and really fell in love with wanting to impact teachers early on in their training and development, and I knew that I had to do that in a higher education landscape. I spent several years trying to do that with a bachelor's degree. Then I tried doing that with a master's degree, and then I continued to get turned down for positions just because I didn't have the degree. Now, I will say that I gained an incredible insight in education in my doctoral work, and it was part of getting into this higher education world in which I am now.

Jeff Selingo:

I want to talk a little bit about some of the issues that we're facing right now in higher education and particularly around student engagement. Stephanie, I want to start with you about exploring this question, namely, how do we create an environment in which students want to engage? Michael and I have been hearing from faculty and administrators about the low level of student engagement right now. Is that what you are seeing, and what's the real challenge institutions are facing to engage students?

Stephanie Speicher:

Yes, yes, and yes. To begin, it seems like it's such a simple question, one where even from many of us, we think back to our own education experiences, where it was just assumed that you were going to participate, that you were engaged in the learning experience. We know now, we're a new paradigm of teaching and learning that I think frankly began before COVID, but then COVID really accelerated what was already happening and what our students were needing. I'll pose this question to all of you, and this will help set this of why this is such an important question and why this is difficult for us, is if we all think back... I want you to think back, and this is for everybody on the call, think back to the moment that you learned to read. Potentially maybe you can remember that moment. Many of us probably don't necessarily remember that moment. I don't remember the moment I learned to read. It's just ingrained in part of what I do.

Some of us, I'm sure, have different stories. Our students that are entering into our college campuses now, they have no memory of what it was like before an iPhone. It is just part of the way that they engage in the world. The technology that they are using to navigate and engage in spaces is completely different than what we experienced in a span of one generation. No wonder this is difficult. No wonder this is challenging for us. So we find that we are now in these really deep, complex problems of how we're engaging students and bringing them to college campuses. I'll just briefly share a couple examples that I think that are important as we think about how do we engage and as we're inviting students into our spaces.

One, be present. Think about how you're creating an environment that your students actually want to be in, that you want to be in. Take the time to explain to the students your why. Find out their why. Find out who they are, what brings them to the classroom. That's all about being present in the space and thinking deeply about how we're crafting a learning experience. Even now, thinking about how we set the tone for this podcast, wanting to set that stage, inviting people into this space so they would want to be engaged with us, that's really critical. I also think it's important... Lately, I've been really into reading Dr. Keltner's work from UC Berkeley, and it's about The Science of Awe. On the backdrop of this, recently a report came out from the Surgeon General that we are now in an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. If that doesn't really think about how we need to use that in our spaces to create engaging spaces, it's critical. Go ahead, Jeff. [inaudible 00:09:23].

Jeff Selingo:

Stephanie, we're going to be spending more time on the solutions to the problems that you are identifying. But Crystal, I kind of want to get a sense of what you're seeing at the University of Memphis. Are you seeing a kind of student engagement or disengagement that might be similar to what Stephanie shared with us?

Crystal White:

Yes and no. Definitely not just at the University of Memphis, but also other campuses, and then across the board from K-12 all the way up through higher ed, kind of like Stephanie mentioned, there was a major paradigm shift that happened because of COVID, as we know. That modality shifted. It created a kind of this burden, this culture where students were already kind of somewhat disengaged, but then it created another layer, another barrier with COVID, especially just having to shift that modality. Kind of coupling with what Stephanie said as well, like the being present and why, I know we'll talk about this a little bit later, but the community of care is something that has definitely been missing and definitely something that needs to be addressed as well.

Michael Horn:

No, so I want to stay with you, Crystal, then, off that for a moment, just to tie together these questions and challenges really around student engagement, with who is at the front of the room in the classrooms and lecture halls. Research has found that students of color who have educators of the same race or ethnicity are more likely to look to those teachers as role models and to then report greater effort in school on their behalf and so forth. I'm just sort of curious to level set us, in your view, what's the current state of recruiting faculty of color, and what are the central challenges that still need to be addressed in that area?

Crystal White:

Oh, boy. Well, let's be quite candid here. The current climate is mostly "Don't ask, don't tell." Current legislator related to DEI initiatives on campuses, et cetera, has made these kinds of conversations, these kinds of questions pretty difficult to answer. But what I can say is that statistics continue to show that Black faculty comprise roughly 6%, and that's mostly due to how faculty of color and other historically mod marginalized groups of faculty members continue to be mistreated at all different types of institutions. You asked about recruitment. It's happening at the recruitment level. It's also happening at the retention level. It's also most importantly happening at the mentoring and advancement levels within the academy. These different groups of faculty and their intersecting identities are either not entering or they're exiting very swiftly due to so many of these issues.

Yesterday during my talk with Dr. Bridget Turner Kelly, we talked a lot about recruitment, retention, and mentoring of Black faculty in academia and how there's oftentimes this bait and switch. They bait you in, and then some kind of way they almost forget, or it's a switch, or it is not as much effort put in to level the playing field, so to speak, for faculty of color. We talked a little bit about invisible and unpaid labor, that we contribute to diverse student populations, unequal distribution of work, feeling overwork, undervalued, and definitely, as we know, the entire state of education, teachers, faculty, staff, we're underpaid. Then not only to mention some of the tenure battles and failure for certain departments to support advancement as it relates to that. Lastly, we also talked about the lack of safe spaces. Some of these unchecked microaggressions, hostile climates that are consistently being perpetuated within academia, making us maybe not even want to enter or making us want to leave just as fastly as we entered. When we think about those things, obviously there are some ways to combat this, and we will talk about that shortly.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, and I want to move to the solutions on both fronts, both engaging students, and how do we get a more diverse pipeline into the faculty. Clearly, there are challenges on both fronts in terms of engaging students in the classroom, particularly given that these are digital natives, as Stephanie mentioned. They don't know a time before the iPhone really even existed. As Crystal just laid out, some of the challenges with faculty, not only in terms of recruiting faculty, but then finding and mentoring faculty of color and getting them through the tenure promotion process at many places. Let's discuss what we might do to address some of these challenges. Stephanie, let me turn to you first. You started a layout a little bit earlier being present and helping students understanding their why. What do we know? What else do we know that works in engaging students and creating a better sense of belonging in the classroom?

Stephanie Speicher:

Yeah. I'll share two examples. One is really thinking about being strategic in the beginning of the semester, really how we are crafting, I think, those very gentle, fragile first weeks of the semester where we are building relationships. We're learning who our students are and how we want to connect with them. In teacher education, and some of you might remember this maybe from your own experience as a student, we use the term attention getter, like, "How am I going to get students attention?" I'd like to switch that around, and I like to think about "How am I using connection getters in my classroom?" Interestingly enough, and I've been so grateful to hear Priya Parker speak as part of our summit and also reading her book, she talks about that in a gathering, and I think about this in the classroom. Our students remember the first five minutes, the last five minutes in some climatic moment in the class.

Those first five minutes, "What am I doing to deliberately connect the students to each other? What am I doing to connect the students to the content that we're going to be teaching in that class?" Then I think about those last five minutes about "How am I going to connect those dots over what did they just learn?" Then thinking about how to connect them to the next learning experience. So really thinking deeply, no matter what your discipline or content area is. I think about, I had a teacher once when I was a kid, first day of school, walked into school, first five minutes. "All right, everybody, we're going to take a math quiz." You talk about a... I was going to say a buzzkill.

Jeff Selingo:

It's kind of a downer, yeah.

Stephanie Speicher:

For us as grownups, but awful. It's about how we're crafting that space. I would say really thinking deeply about that, and then one other just real quick piece of-

Crystal White:

Well, Stephanie, before you move that [inaudible 00:16:58]-

Stephanie Speicher:

Oh yeah, take it, Crystal. Yeah, go.

Crystal White:

Just when you're thinking about the disengagement at both the student level and the faculty level, there's been a lot of research that basically says it's because we have these unauthentic learning experiences, and so exactly what you're talking about, that connection. I always like to explain or express to my students, a lot of whom are going to be future teacher educators, that it's important to bridge the gap between theory to practical application, and that's exactly what you're explaining here. So making those connections and letting them see that these experiences that they are learning, they're not unauthentic, they have meaning and they have purpose. Then for them to be able to connect those dots and really to see this come to life within their perspective fields is how we really keep them engaged. A lot of times my research goes into making sure that things are culturally relevant or culturally sustaining within their assessments and within their activities that they're engaged in within the classroom. That's the same way within us with our research and the things that we're doing within our respective colleges and universities.

Jeff Selingo:

Yeah, I mean, relevance clearly is key here, because if you're sitting in a classroom, either virtually or even in person, and what you're learning is not relevant, you don't understand why you're learning it or how you're going to apply it ever. Or if you're going to apply it, by the way, years from now, you probably won't remember it anyway. The relevancy is the key there. I still don't think higher education does this well today. You're clearly offering, you're both offering solutions, but for all those leaders out there who are listening today or watching us live during this virtual conference, what's it going to take to get there? What are some of the structural barriers to... In other words, we kind of know what to do, we just can't sometimes get out of our own way to do it. So what should institutions do to tackle these structural barriers? Stephanie, let me start with you on that.

Stephanie Speicher:

I think it begins with really thinking deeply about first, who is at the table having these conversations, and the ideas that are being represented, and also being willing, and this is very big picture, and then I'll narrow down, but really being willing to kind of start completely over. I know at the university in which I teach, we're in the midst of building two new big buildings when we found out 60% of our course offerings are being offered online starting in the fall. I mean, it's about rethinking the way that we engage in teaching and learning, being willing to reimagine what does teaching and learning and what do our students need in the 21st century. I'll just say this. This is where we need to shift from our classroom spaces being designed as a traditional lecture format to spaces that actually encourage active and communal and cooperative learning, where you walk into a classroom, you have no idea where the front is.

I would say, again, speaking from my own experience, 80% of the classrooms I walk into now I can tell you exactly where the front is and who is in charge and who is the leader. We have to completely rethink that. I'll just say, tangibly, think about your space and how we have to create the spaces in order to create the learning environments in the communities that we want to see. From really thinking about active learning classrooms to redesigning the way that we're asking students to engage with our curriculum, experiential modalities, or immersive study experiences or internships, the list goes on and on, but really rethinking the way that we're engaging in curriculum. That's hard. That's very hard, because all of us have been indoctrinated into a way of learning because we have also, the majority of us, have gone through the American system of education.

Michael Horn:

Yeah. Well, let me jump in Crystal with a question to take it over to the faculty member side, because we've just heard some themes in both of your answers, connection, relevance, active, really rethinking "the front of the room." How do we make it more cooperative? I'm curious, how do we better support those who want to be faculty members and are from diverse backgrounds? What does the solution there look like? Where does it pull from these things, and where do you start to think of other ideas that come in to help us with those challenges that you mentioned?

Crystal White:

Yeah, so I'm actually going to kind of piggyback just a little bit off of Stephanie here where she mentioned, really in my own words, shaking things up a little bit. Then in a sense, the way that I look at that is creating more improvisational or playful spaces in which both students can be engaged and they can get this feeling of everything that's going on within the classroom. But then also on the faculty end as far as addressing some of the issues that I brought up earlier, breaking up some of those traditional modes, some of those antiquated things that are no longer working or no longer effective for our faculty of color or our even diverse student population is going to be something that is going to have to take place and going to have to shift.

A lot of the research that I've done deals with imaginative play across the lifespan, and so bringing in some of those unique learning experiences. I've said a couple of times, "Uh-oh, I made a mistake. It's okay, we're just going to keep rolling with it. Take a couple of deep breaths, and we keep moving forward." I think that that's something that we have to be ready to do. When we think back to how this started for both myself and Stephanie, these were playful experiences in our childhood that led to these passions, and we just continue to build and grow. It's okay if you make one or two mistakes. Just like you said, we have the tools, we know what to do, we just need to implement them, put them in place, make a couple mistakes, celebrate those mistakes, and keep moving forward.

Michael Horn:

Some really good thoughts there, Crystal. Just one more question after which we're going to go to our audience Q&A. So those of you who have asked questions, if some of you are ready to come on camera and ask it, that'd be terrific, but also getting your questions now, because we're about to go there. Crystal, just to end with you on this question from me and Jeff, I'm just curious if there are institutions out there that you'd say, "They're doing this well." If you're willing to name them, that would be terrific as well, but just trying to see, are there good models, in other words, that we can pin our hat to and other schools can really replicate or learn from?

Crystal White:

Uh-oh, Michael, you're trying to get me in trouble here. Well, let's just say, let's just be completely transparent. I do believe there are several institutions across our nation, across our globe that are attempting at different collegiate levels, department levels, even program levels. They are attempting. As mentioned before, due to our current state, we have a kind of "Don't ask, don't tell." We kind of got a sticky situation going on with DEI right now. We are working towards things, but a lot of these are so systemically ingrained and entwined that we really do have to move away from. Some schools that I've actually I guess kind of did a little bit of research on that are moving a little bit more proactively across the board.

One, I could definitely say Columbia University. They've been praised for improving their racial climate, by being one of the first universities in the US to create an African-American advocacy group and allocating millions of dollars in funds specifically for Black faculty recruitment and retention. We could learn, we could model after them. Also, Emory University, UC Irvine, UNC Chapel Hill. Also, I cannot forget, although I am not a member of a HBCU alumni, I must say that HBCUs across the board have definitely for years been able to continue to do this move towards successful recruitment retention as well as mentoring and continuing to advance their Black faculty and other faculty of color.

Jeff Selingo:

This is just great in terms of the feedback that we're also getting in the comments. Just a terrific conversation about a set of twin issues that kind of connect, relate, and have big implications for where higher education is going. We want to now go to some audience questions and feature your voices on the podcast. Michael, I think we have a few questions that have come in during this conversation.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, we have several coming in. We're going to go live to one. Andre Kohler, if we can bring you up on the spotlight.

Andre Kohler:

Perfect. Thanks so much. Dr. White, you were talking about unsafe spaces, and so I'll just kind of read my question. What are your recommendations for navigating those more gray spaces where the climate is not overly hostile to diverse faculty and students, but there isn't a real effort to recruit, mentor and retain them up to and including promotion and salary advancement for faculty and administrators, particularly those who are not of the majority culture within the organization? Thank you.

Crystal White:

Thank you for such a beautiful question. One of the things that I would like to say is possibly institutionalizing some sort of paradigm shift that implements the ABCs, so acceptance, belongingness, and then communicative community. An example of that I can share is actually happening right here at the University of Memphis. We have a Women+'s Mentorship Network in which individuals across our university include women plus faculty, students, both undergraduate and graduate, and staff members that come together for different professionalization activities, events, as well as book clubs and writing opportunities. Because this is a small group inside of the university that is representative of interdisciplinary groups, we are able to bring up some of these issues and concerns and come up with solutions and then bring them back to our upper administration and then as we'll continue to support one another.

As we're navigating some of these more challenging and difficult spaces, we are able to come up with some solutions that we can actually push back to our higher admin and gain support or gain better solutions that are going to be systemically implemented at our institution. I definitely feel like mentoring at that type of level, the more apprenticed mentoring is definitely something that could be beneficial and that could help to address some of these issues. Almost thinking taskforce teams and things of that nature, if that makes sense.

Michael Horn:

Terrific. Terrific. Andre, thank you for your question on the show. Let's go to Dianne Wilcox who has a question from the Georgia Military College.

Dianne Wilcox:

Hello, I'm Dianne Wilcox from the Deep South. We are a teaching institution and we have very much flipped our model in the last few years. So you see, I teach in-sync, I teach remote. We have a high number of dual enrollment students and online, so recreating the space in which our students learn is highly relevant. Improvisation is key. Improvisation. How do we move from the traditional instructor-centered education to student-centered instruction? This is what I'm hearing from the disengaged students, "It's not about us anymore, it's about them." So how do we use the center student-centered approach to combat decreased student engagement?

Stephanie Speicher:

Dianne, thanks for that question. My teacher heart is singing because I completely agree with you. When we create a student-centered, or as I like to say, it's human-centered, classroom, an idea where we are all part of this learning environment, it's amazing what we can accomplish. The transition though is difficult, and so my first initial response would be to start small. If you're thinking, if you're at a university that's supporting a change in pedagogy, I think we all know that it's here. I know I feel like I really don't have a choice. I cannot stand up in front of another classroom reading off slides again and look out into a sea of 50 eyes which are not engaged with me, and so I really felt like I had no choice.

I think if for those of us that are new to this, I would say engage with... Many of our universities have centers for engaged teaching and learning, or teaching and learning forums or centers that provide opportunities for us to think about student-centered pedagogy, ways that we are rethinking or reframing the lecture, the way that we are using digital tools to engage with our students and create that sense of community. For those of us that might be more experienced or have been doing student-centered pedagogy for years, and I know for me, that's where I was. Then COVID just was like... it totally shook me up. It was like, "Steph, you've got to rethink this." So for me, this is where the digital pedagogy has really elevated for me, where I'm really thinking deeply about how do I use the tools and the resource that are available to me and not necessarily in gamification, which we could have a big conversation about as well, but how am I using those to create community?

How am I create I using those tools to bridge and create student-centered spaces, for example, Flipgrid, something very basic as that, or the Google suite of tools or from Jamboards and the collaborative tools where we're deliberately and creating learning experiences. The last thing I'll say on this is that we have to rethink the assessments that we're giving and the assignments, not just the learning experiences, but this is where our authentic... That's a big one. Authentic assessment design comes in and that it's relevant. What Crystal was saying earlier, that, again, it cannot be just some contrived hundred question, multiple choice test. We need to think deeply about what and how we're creating and the relevance for our students.

Jeff Selingo:

That's great.

Michael Horn:

Let me ask a different question that came in. Are you finding that students are more engaged in person or online these days? Stephanie, you were mentioning in particular changing the way the "classroom" is shaped in the design and so forth, and perhaps rethinking the lecture hall design and things of that nature. What are you both finding in your practice right now?

Stephanie Speicher:

I think it's hard. I think it depends. Each is unique, based on what a student wants and what they bring to the particular learning environment. For example, in my face-to-face classes where you think "I've got this incredible engaging environment" and they are disconnected, right? They've got their laptop on, you think they're taking copious notes and man, they're on Amazon. Then the same thing might hold true on our online classes when we're teaching, for example, in a platform like Zoom. We think our students potentially might be disconnected, because it's easy to disconnect. But I actually find often it's easier to connect because people are in spaces where they are often comfortable, and so it's sometimes easier to be more present in those learning spaces.

I think, again, this is where the role of us as faculty is that we cannot underestimate really the importance and the power of the spaces that we create with as teachers, and that what we're facilitating in those spaces to help students engage. So my answer is it depends, and it's really up to you to really think deeply about how you're crafting that and really how you are, again, as we're thinking about the pedagogy and the principles of engagement that we can bring in to help our students engage with us and the content.

Jeff Selingo:

Now we have our final question for the podcast, and that's from Carolyn Wiley. Carolyn?

Carolyn Wiley:

I'm Carolyn Wiley, a professor of management and human resources at Roosevelt University in Chicago, so I'm privileged to be on this conversation with you. How would you suggest bringing students back into the game of creating dialogue and peer learning and being keen to understand from their peers, understand others' perspectives and apply them to their life experience?

Jeff Selingo:

Crystal, Stephanie, you each want to take 30 seconds on that?

Stephanie Speicher:

Yeah, I'll say, and this goes back to what I was saying, to the best of our ability, we need to create the learning experiences and the assessments that gently guide and force our students to engage in this dialogue, and we need to teach them those skills ourselves. We have to remember our students, they need practice just as much as we do. They need practice on how to engage in dialogue, and it's up to us to craft those experiences.

Crystal White:

I believe a lot of these learning experiences come from experience and exposure, exactly what Stephanie's explaining here. When we create and we cultivate these particular learning spaces that are a little bit more authentic in nature, it even comes into play where Stephanie said earlier about the spaces within the classroom. A lot of times we may just have to change the dynamics and the structure of the actual seats and tables within our classroom. We're on a Zoom platform right now. A lot of times when you're engaged in these online classes, you may have to just have a round-robin conversation, bounce ideas off of one another. Don't be afraid to interrupt and to share your ideas and to bring things forward.

You can move the tables and chairs around in your classroom, set it up more like corporate style, like a roundtable or a conference room or something of that nature. And on the more academic level, these more conference style where students are bringing up particular issues and then they kind of round-robin or gallery walk and share ideas, use their post-it notes in the classroom and share their additional ideas, because that is what is happening in the real world and they need to have more of these authentic experiences and exposures in their everyday practices, even within the classroom.

Stephanie Speicher:

Yes, yes, yes.

Carolyn Wiley:

Thank you so much.

Michael Horn:

This is a perfect place, I think to wrap it up. We've heard today a powerful call for leadership along with connection and relevance and community and a real culture of care. While I will take Stephanie's thought to heart that we might favor connection getters over attention getters in the classroom, we also hope that this podcast recording has gotten some attention on some important topics. As we wrap up this, our sixth season of Future U with this bonus episode, I just want to say a huge thank you firstly to Crystal White and Stephanie Speicher. Just, I really, really appreciate you engaging with us and coming into these important conversations.

Of course, a huge thank you to Course Hero, not just for today, but for sponsorship all year long, and they've been sponsoring the Course Hero question all year long on the podcast episodes as well, which has just been a terrific addition to the show this year. Finally, thanks to all of you in the audience who have gone with us on this journey for this first live recording of a podcast as part of the Course Hero summit, but truly on behalf of me, Jeff, and of course, Course Hero, we appreciate all of you, and we'll see you soon.

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