What Can I Do?

Wednesday, April 9

9am PT/ 10am MDT/ 12pm ET

This event is open to current NACBS members and any members of our regional affiliates.

Come learn from a panel of experts at a variety of institutions about your roles, rights, and options for supporting students, staff, and colleagues in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. We'll consider specific advice for people in different positions within the academy; how to control what you can while continuing to foster diverse, dynamic, accessible, and inclusive intellectual communities; the role of tenured faculty and the role of staff, non-tenured faculty, and grad students as we navigate challenges to academic freedom, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Participants

-          Heather Steffen, Assistant Director, Faculty First Responders, AAUP, Georgetown University

-          Muriel McClendon, Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs, UCLA

-          Andrea Hunt, Founding Director, Mitchell-West Center for Social Inclusion at the University of North Alabama

-          Jeffrey Bibbee, Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Tennessee at Martin

Heather Steffen is an adjunct professor and core faculty member in the MA Program in the Engaged and Public Humanities, as well as an adjunct lecturer in the Writing Program at Georgetown. Heather’s research focuses on the intersections of labor and learning in and around U.S. colleges and universities, employing frameworks that derive from and contribute to critical, abolitionist, and decolonizing university studies. She writes about academic labor, student learning and research, graduate humanities education, and the study of higher education in the humanities. Heather also serves as assistant director of Faculty First Responders, an organization that supports academic workers attacked in right-wing media and develops webinars and workshops to educate workers about academic freedom and its defense.

Dr. Andrea Hunt is a Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Mitchell-West Center for Social Inclusion and the Center for Women’s Studies at the University of North Alabama. Her teaching, research, and community work cover a range of interrelated topics including youth and families, mental health, trauma, identity development, mentoring, and inclusive practices. Dr. Hunt also teaches in the psychiatric residency program at Shoals Hospital and has facilitated numerous workshops on trauma-informed practices, innovative teaching strategies, and effective communication. Dr. Hunt serves on the board of Riverbend Center for Mental Health and SPAN of Lauderdale County. She is an Associate Licensed Counselor (ALC) with a specific focus on youth in the child welfare system and addressing burnout within helping professions.

Muriel C. McClendon is Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs and Associate Dean for EDI at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Jeffrey Bibbee has served as the Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Tennessee at Martin since July 2023.  Bibbee completed his degrees in history at Auburn University and at King’s College London.  Bibbee has served on several boards committed to creating inclusive spaces, such as the Invisible Histories Project and the Bear Creek Collaborative.  Bibbee has served on the NACBS Advisory Board, the NACBS Rights Task Force, and the NACBS DEI Committee.