LWTech’s Diversity and Social Justice (DSJ) Program
Sharon Raz
The Diversity and Social Justice (DSJ) program
In Fall 2021, LWTech implemented a new academic requirement for all new students. This requirement focuses on diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, with a special emphasis on antiracism, and it applies to all programs of the college. The requirement reinforces the college’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion while aligning our standards with many other colleges in Washington State.
The LWTech Diversity and Social Justice (DSJ) requirement dives deeper into diversity and social justice in either an entire course dedicated to or contextualized around diversity and social justice. The DSJ content may be contextualized to Prof-Tech or General Education courses. Every degree or certificate of proficiency-seeking student is expected to take, at least, one DSJ-designated course. This requirement doesn’t add costs to degree requirements and no additional time to meet required degree pathways. Students taking DSJ classes would be invited to choose from a variety of DSJ-designated classes.
All DSJ instructors are part of the LWTech DSJ faculty learning community. This is a community of educators, who learn together and develop their self-awareness to issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity. Before teaching a DSJ-designated course, faculty were required to complete a quarter-long in-house LWTech training, focused on DSJ concepts and pedagogy. The Faculty Training sets the foundations of our learning community and provides knowledge, resources, and tools. Each new DSJ instructor is also assigned a mentor. In addition, all DSJ faculty participate in an ongoing collaborative DSJ Professional Learning Community that provides mentoring, support, and resources for DSJ courses.
The Community-Based Task Force
As a part of a general discussion of the DSJ faculty learning community about DSJ pedagogies, a desire to learn more about community-based learning (CBL) and how to include CBL in our teaching practices was highlighted. In response, a task force of eight DSJ faculty members, with the support of Dean Sally Hielstedt and Vice President of Instruction, Dr. Mike Potter, was created.
During the 2023-2024 academic year the task force met regularly to set the foundations for this faculty guide. The following members researched CBL, designed a faculty survey and gathered CBL resources: Dr. Johnny Calavitta, Dr. Linda Costarella, Ted Maloney, Jenny Rogoff, Molly Verschuyl, Sue Wozniak, Dr. Sharon Raz, and Nomita Yadav.
