Advising for Social Justice: The Legacy and Lessons of bell hooks in Contemporary Academic Advising
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2023 - 1:00 PM CDT (GMT-5)
This webinar examines bell hooks' liberatory pedagogy and focuses on social justice in the context of academic advising today. bell hooks' death on December 15, 2021, calls us to reexamine her influence and legacy on thinking about higher education and the importance of critical mentorship of students. Indeed, her autotheoretical and intersectional approach is perfectly suited to the work of advising, with its movement from theory to personal narrative/reflection and praxis. Moreover, hooks’ teaching and mentorship of students-which mirror these core relational aspects of advising-center on her learning and readerly life.
Readers of her books learn of hooks’ memories of college and of her early education not as asides or heartfelt anecdotes but as the foundation of her ideas. "Whenever I am asked by audiences to give an account of my journey from small-town segregated black working-class experience to being a well-known intellectual," hooks explains, "I highlight the significance of reading." What ties hooks' teaching texts together is an exercise in threading together critical thinking, community-based knowledge, and personal experiences. When hooks' begins a sentence with "when I was in college" or "During my undergraduate years," she is bridging the personal and cognitive, the reading of her own life that informs her approach to teaching. hooks’ work resonates closely with the approaches advisers employ asking students to reflect on their personal interests, knowledge, reading, and classroom experience as they move through their college journey. In addition to offering information on hooks’ life and publications, the webinar presenters will closely examine short passages and discuss their relevance to advising today. Attendees will leave with ideas on how to engage with hooks’ writings and how to bring hooks’ ideas on intersectionality and inclusion into their work at colleges and universities.