Spring Book Discussion: Bandwidth Recovery - THUR √ §

Join your colleagues for a discussion of the book, Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization by Cia Verschelden, Stylus, 2017. Each participant will receive a copy of the book ahead of time. Lunch will be provided.

Excerpted from the publisher: Verschelden uses “bandwidth” as a metaphor for cognitive and emotional resources—she analyzes how nonmajority students’ cognitive loads can be impacted by experiences of economic insecurity, discrimination, and hostility based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity, and other aspects of difference.  The chronic stress of systematic oppression can result in decreased physical and mental health and social and economic opportunity. People who are operating with depleted mental bandwidth are less able to succeed in school, are much less likely to make it to college, and, if they do, are less likely to persist to graduation.

To help students recover bandwidth, the author presents evidence-based interventions, including strategies for promoting a growth mindset and self-efficacy, for developing supports that build upon students’ values and prior knowledge, and for creating learning environments both in and out of the classroom so students can feel a sense of belonging and community. She addresses issues of stereotyping and exclusion and discusses institutional structures and processes that create identity-safe rather than identity-threat learning environment.

There will be two sessions, Monday, February 26th and Thursday, March 1^st.  Register for ONE session only.  Only one session can count toward the ALIT or INNOVATE Certificate programs.  Because we want faculty to discuss the book together and due to budget constraints, if you register and take a book and do not attend, we do ask that you return the book so that we can use it for other discussions.