Thread by @JuliePosselt

It’s grad admissions deliberation time. Here, I offer a few suggestions from my research for constructive, candid discussion that can advance equity goals directly and/or create a healthy group dynamic around controversial matters: 1/n
@InclusiveGradEd @GradEdEquity

🗣Consider setting a short list of discussion guidelines eg
-Listen actively
-Avoid interrupting
-Pay attention to how much sonic space you are occupying
-Disagreement is not a problem.
-Manage disagreements with care for both the question at hand & the people involved.
2/n

👍🏿👍🏽👍🏻No matter what your policy context, you *can* talk about how race is associated with
-Distributions of test scores, grades, access to elite colleges, other desired characteristics
-Perspectives a student brings
3/n

📂Bring specifics from the application in describing what an applicant is like & how admissible you find them. This is the core of deliberative democracy! Notice whether you & your colleagues are prone to unsubstantiated use of adjectives (excellent, solid, underprepared etc)
4/n

💀 Avoid the Admissions Death March. That is, focus on building a case for applicants relative to specific, pre-defined criteria instead of comparatively evaluating applicants against each other. The latter leads to privileging qualities to which there is unequal access.
5/n

🥑 May sound silly, but serve food if you can, whether it’s coffee & a bag of crappy grocery store cookies or sandwiches from a deli. Make this meeting about coming together to create your future, and protect the group from negative effects of low blood sugar.
6/n

📊Finally, don’t wait until you are done to assess the diversity of your selected students. If diversity is a value, be sure to embed it into the conversation, your evaluations, & your decisions like you do other values. Anything less is tokenism.
Fin.

@InclusiveGradEd @GradEdEquity @threadreaderapp unroll