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October 30, 2024 • 17 mins

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Dr. Seval Yildirim, UB's Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence, joins us on the Teaching Table podcast to tackle a pressing question: How can we foster an inclusive environment that excites and engages everyone on campus? Discover her strategies for managing change and progress in equity, diversity, justice, and inclusion as she shares her personal journey and the importance of understanding a campus's unique culture. Dr. Yildirim talks about building collaborative alliances, addressing resistance, and the critical role of listening in understanding the diverse identities and needs within our communities.

Throughout the conversation, we explore what diversity, equity, and inclusion truly mean and how these concepts can be effectively implemented in educational settings. Dr. Yildirim emphasizes the importance of equitable outcomes for students and the need for faculty and staff to equip themselves with the right tools to create inclusive classrooms. With valuable insights into creating meaningful change from the ground up, this episode is essential for anyone committed to advancing educational excellence and social justice. Join us as we unpack the complexities of building a more inclusive university environment, one step at a time.

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Episode Transcript

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Maggie Grady (00:03):
Welcome to the CATT Teaching Table podcast,
where we dive into the art andscience of teaching, learning
and technology.
Hosted by the University ofBuffalo's Office of Curriculum
Assessment and TeachingTransformation, otherwise known
as CATT, and supported by theGenteel's Excellence in Teaching
Fund, this podcast is dedicatedto highlighting the journeys
toward educational excellence.

(00:23):
Is dedicated to highlightingthe journeys toward educational
excellence.
I'm Maggie Grady, a learningdesigner in CATT, and today we
will be tackling a topic ofequity, diversity, justice and
inclusion, or EDJ.
Joining us today is Dr.
Seval Yildirim, newly appointedas UB's Vice Provost for
Inclusive Excellence.
Thank you, Dr.
Yildirim, for joining us todayand sharing your journey, your

(00:45):
insights, your strategies toachieving social justice among
the university.
So welcome to UB and welcome toBuffalo.
We had a little chance to speakbefore ] podcast and you've
been h an you describe to ourlisteners how you manage change
and forward progress in theareas of equity, diversity,

(01:08):
justice and inclusion?

Dr. Seval Yildirim (01:10):
Sure, I think you know, for any kind of
change even change that is notsort of politically charged or
misunderstood I think you haveto first learn your environment,
and every campus is a communityon its own.
So it's really important, whenyou come as an outsider, to take
your time to learn the cultureof the campus, of the university

(01:35):
, understand who the people are,what's been done, what has been
successful and what has notbeen so successful, where there
are pockets of opposition andresistance because they do exist
and then you know listen.
So I'm still listening almost ayear in and in my experience

(01:56):
you know you just have to keepdoing that.
Then you know you startresponding to the best of your
ability and form collaborativecommunities, identify allies who
can actually be your voice andyour support system.
I think that's how we go aboutchange, not in a top-down manner

(02:19):
, but really by buildingconsensus bottom-up.

Maggie Grady (02:24):
So in doing a little bit of research, just so
I could see who you are as aperson, but I came across a
question that you posed recently, so I'm going to ask it back
how do you create an inclusiveenvironment that people feel
excited to be a part of, andthen to follow up with that,
what steps can we take on campusto support that vision?

Dr. Seval Yildirim (02:43):
First, it's important for us to understand
what we mean by DEI andinclusion.
These are very politicizedterms, especially today.
I think diversity we have toappreciate is just a fact, right
, we're either a diversecommunity or we're not.
These are just numbers, and soit's just a fact.
Inclusion is an act, it's thecumulative set of acts that we

(03:10):
undertake to make sure that wecreate a community in
recognition of the diverseidentities that we have.
So it's understanding who is inour community first, what their
needs are.
So listening to learn againbecomes very important, without

(03:30):
sort of also creating sort ofstereotypes or presuming that
everyone in a group has the sameneeds or perspectives, etc.
Because I think that's a trapsometimes we fall into, and so
that takes a lot of effort andit takes a lot of communal

(03:51):
effort, right?
So the question about what canwe do?
I think it's about acceptingresponsibility at the unit level
, starting from our classroomsand hallways and office spaces
and in terms of, you know, workthat's directly relevant to
teaching and learning, startingwith creating inclusive

(04:13):
classrooms and providing ourfaculty with the tools they need
to appreciate and understandwhat that is.
Because you know we ourselvescan come from diverse
backgrounds, doesn't mean weunderstand how the other diverse
group you know feels about theenvironment we create.
I'm a Middle Eastern Muslimwoman.

(04:35):
Doesn't mean I understand andappreciate what my black
students might need, unless Imake an effort to actually
understand and appreciate whatthey need and listen to them and
respond.
And equity going back to thedefinition for DEI, equity is
about outcomes.
So asking again do our studentshave equitable outcomes?

(04:59):
Are they graduating at similarrates?
Are they succeeding at similarrates?
Are they finding jobs atsimilar rates and things like
that?
And so inclusion really is whatmakes all of this other stuff
possible.
So it's at the heart of DEI,it's not just the numbers we

(05:19):
bring in.

Maggie Grady (05:21):
Do you have any resources for instructors and
instructional support staff,like here at CATT, where we have
four learning designers andwe're always eager to help our
faculty, who reach out to uswith different resources and
strategies to help teach theirclasses into best practices,
current trends, things like that, information on laws, legal

(05:44):
issues related to EDJI and Irefer to it as EDJI.

Dr. Seval Yildirim (05:50):
So I mean I'm happy to do that.
I do sort of facilitateconversations around teaching
and learning from an inclusionangle, right, how do we create
inclusive classrooms, type ofthing.
But we also have aninstitutional membership to
NCFDD, which is basicallyNational Center for Faculty

(06:10):
Development and Diversity, andso every member of our community
has access to their resourcesand they have many sort of.
They have podcasts like this one, they have workshops and
certificate programs and they'reall free for our faculty and
staff and where they may not beagain, this is part of the

(06:34):
sponsorship that we provide andwe encourage, of course, always
our deans and department chairsto support the faculty in those
efforts.
We recently also became aninstitutional member to the
Hispanic Association of Collegesand Universities and they also
have many different professionaldevelopment resources for
faculty and staff geared towardscreating inclusive spaces for

(07:00):
Hispanic students, which is oneof the largest minority groups
that we have on campus and Iforesee that group sort of
growing, and every otherinstitution I served at before
was a Hispanic servinginstitution.
So I was very happy to comehere and one of the first things
I did was make sure that we areinstitutional members to the

(07:22):
Hispanic Association of Collegesand Universities, so they offer
many, many differentopportunities as well.

Maggie Grady (07:31):
One of your focuses is to recruit and retain
faculty and students fromunderrepresented groups,
promoting inclusive pedagogy inclassrooms and building high
school to university pipelines.
Can you explain to ourlisteners the efforts that you
are making towards that, toensure success?

Dr. Seval Yildirim (07:49):
I think faculty diversity often is not
discussed as in a highlightedmanner as it should be, because
as we bring in an increasinglymore diverse student body, we
have to have representation ofthat in our faculty, and that is
not always easy to in R1'sbecause our focus is not always

(08:10):
there.
I'm really happy to see bothour provost and our president
are absolutely committed to that, and I had the pleasure of
talking to our incoming facultythis year at the faculty
orientation, and there are about140 some of them and 110 some
of them are tenure track,faculty tenured or tenure track,

(08:30):
and it was an incrediblydiverse group.
So that to me is very, veryexciting.
It's also an exciting timebecause on the faculty side we
have two programs in my officethat we have kind of revamped.
One is just at UB it's calledVITAL, where we bring doctoral

(08:54):
students of color or fromdoctoral students from
marginalized communities to ourcampus for four or five days
where they get to meet thedepartments, present their
scholarship, get to meet eachother, we give them guidance on
how to enter the job market etc.
That's not really pipeline interms of we don't expect

(09:15):
everyone will be hired here andwe make that clear to them
because not every departmentthat brings them here can
actually hire them.
But it is a service that weprovide to the academic
community at large, because theyget to know each other and they
get an appreciation for whatthe job market will be like,
because that's not the easiestexperience.

(09:38):
We're also collaborating withSUNY, and they have a new
program called PRODiG+, which isa postdoctoral program, and
SUNY and UB were basicallysharing the costs of the program
and this year we have fourpostdoctoral candidates joining

(10:03):
us as Prodigy scholars and wehope to bring more of them.
Now, that is definitely apipeline program because if
everything goes well, we willhave open tenure track lines
available for these faculty ofcolor, future faculty of color,
on our campus.
So those are very interestingthings.
And I'll say one thing about onthe student side.

(10:26):
You know we've been having alot of conversations about
outreach to indigenouscommunities, to black and
Hispanic communities, to ensurethat despite the recent well,
not so recent anymore, butdespite the Supreme Court
decision that bans affirmativeaction on student admissions, we
continue to increase diversityof our student body.

Maggie Grady (10:50):
Okay, so there has been a lot in the news recently
about states that areeliminating diversity, equity,
inclusion in their states, soare there any changes on the
horizon that might impact ourwork here at UB?

Dr. Seval Yildirim (11:10):
So I think in New York State we're lucky to
be in a I will call it areasonable region where, you
know, difference is not seen asa threat and it shouldn't be
right.
Diversity really makes us allstronger, the student experience

(11:30):
better.
There's a lot of research thatshows that diversity of teams
leads to better outcomes, moreefficiency, more creativity,
more innovation, which of coursemakes sense, right?
If we're all saying the samething, come with similar
experiences, then we're justkind of running around in the

(11:51):
same circle.
So it is very unfortunate thatwe're going through this
backlash period and for thosewho are interested in this topic
, I really highly recommend theChronicle of Higher Education.
It has a DEI legislationtracker so you can go on

(12:11):
Chronicle of Higher Educationand see where these things are.
And it's really scary to seebecause some legislation has
passed and DEI offices have beenclosed.
But then there are other stateswhere there's proposed
legislation, where theinstitutions are shutting down
their DEI programs inanticipation so that they're not

(12:34):
kind of, you know, targeted, ifyou will.
And so as to what's in thehorizon, it's difficult to say.
So I think there's a lot ofunknown at this point in terms
of the future of DEI.
You know, I think it's a verytense moment in our country, so

(12:55):
we'll see.

Maggie Grady (12:56):
So aligning and expanding the university's edgy
related initiatives are soimportant to promote student,
faculty and staff success, as weknow.
How can we, as a university,help with the initiatives and
goals?

Dr. Seval Yildirim (13:08):
Every unit has to accept responsibility and
commit to it.
A centralized office like minecan only make recommendations
and facilitate success of theunits by finding resources and
pointing people in the rightdirection, but we're not on the
ground doing the work every day.

(13:31):
So I think everyone needs to becommitted to this and do the
work in the units and ask forhelp where needed, and that's
why offices like mine existcentrally in central
administration.
I always feel fortunate that mycareer ended up being in the
university context, because it'sa continuous learning

(13:53):
experience for all of us andit's an opportunity to educate
one another in this environment.
So I feel very fortunate forthat, and I think one thing we
can do is continue to do that,right?
Listen to one another again, tohear one another, not just to
sort of fulfill what we alreadythink as truth or our

(14:20):
presumptions, but really try tolearn from one another.
I encourage everyone to engagein these opportunities and I
think when professors andinstructors engage in these
opportunities, students see thatand it creates an even more
vibrant environment for studentswhere they see their professors

(14:43):
engage with one another,hopefully in civil discourse,
and I think that's how wesupport one another keeping an
open mind, exercising empathyand compassion for different
viewpoints, trying to understandwhere we all come from.

Maggie Grady (15:03):
Each of us can make a difference, so I'm a firm
believer in that one.
So thank you, Dr.
Yildirim, for sharing yourjourney and your insights.
Your story is a powerfulreminder that the right approach
, proper education and asupportive environment will help
to achieve diversity, equity,inclusion and that can be closer
for us at UB.

(15:25):
Do you have any final thoughtsthat you would like to share
with our listeners?

Dr. Seval Yildirim (15:29):
And I'll just say I mean, at the end of
the day, the purpose of DEIinitiatives is so that one day
we don't have to think and talkin these terms because it's just
who we are and what we do, soit's not something we have to
identify and have initiativesfor.
Classes are inclusive, so wedon't have to provide tools to

(15:51):
anybody and it's kind of secondnature, right.
So you know it's like you doresearch, if you are a tenure
line faculty, you don't have tomake a big deal about that, and
so the hope is that someday DEIwill be that, and I think you
know there's certainly thecommitment and a strong

(16:14):
foundation at UB, regardless ofwhat happens nationally and
whatever we may be subjected tonationally, hopefully we'll be
fine.
So yeah, it's been really nicechatting with you.

Maggie Grady (16:34):
You just threw out a whole bunch of resources that
I was unaware of, so thank youfor sharing that with us and our
listeners.
So thank you to our listenersfor tuning into this episode of
the Teaching Table podcast.
If you enjoyed today'sdiscussion, be sure to subscribe
and leave us a review.
We'll be back soon with moreconversation on teaching,

(16:55):
learning and technology, anduntil then, keep exploring new
ways to reach and inspire yourstudents and your faculty.
As always, be sure to connectwith us online at buffalo.
edu/catt that's C-A-T-T or emailus at ubcatt@ buffalo.
edu.
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