The Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), the Intercultural Student Engagement Center and the Mahurin Honors College Scholars of Color have partnered together to host My WKU Experience: Addressing Race in the Classroom.

The non-traditional webinar forum will take place on Zoom Friday, Oct. 2, at 3 p.m. and pre-registration is required.  The event is designed for individuals to register for the event, watch the videos from participants before the event and then participate in discussion during the event.

Cierra Waller, assistant director for CITL and moderator for Friday’s event, said the event is designed to give educators insight into what classes are like for students of color.

“This event aims to capture the voices of some of our WKU students.” Waller said. “We partnered with ISEC and the Honors College to find students of color that were willing to share their perspective about how race impacts them in the classroom.”

Waller said the event hopes to engage people to have those sometimes-tough conversations about race, while also showing that not every one of the same background has the same experience. 

“We interviewed the students before the event and are asking people to view the interviews beforehand and develop questions based on those interviews and what they heard,” Waller said.

Students and faculty can register for the event here.  Registration for this event will close on Friday morning ahead of the event that afternoon.

“Even among these students of color at WKU, their experiences are wide and varied and hope that lends light to the fact that even though some of us look the same, we are all different,” Waller said. “I think when we’re thinking about these issues, it’s important to recognize these students have individual experience and you’ll see in the videos, they’re not all the same.”

Michael Dylan Payne can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @mdpayne_.