Walk the Walk Week 2024
What is WTTW?
From January 15-22, 2024, Notre Dame will celebrate the ninth annual campus-wide observance of Walk the Walk Week (WTWW), a week-long series of University, department, and student-sponsored events designed to help us consider how we—both individually and collectively—can take an active role in making Notre Dame more welcoming and inclusive.
Notre Dame’s commitment to diversity and inclusion arises from our aspirations about the community we want to be and goes to the heart of the University’s mission. In keeping with Catholic social teaching, we strive to:
- Respect the dignity of every person
- Build a Notre Dame community in which all can flourish
- Live in solidarity with all, particularly the most vulnerable
WTWW is an important opportunity, among many throughout the year, to recommit ourselves to these principles and consider our next step in building a more just, equitable, and inclusive campus and society.
Opportunities Available Through Notre Dame Learning
Notre Dame Learning and the OIT’s Teaching & Learning Technologies group are excited to join with Hesburgh Libraries to offer the events below to the campus community as part of WTWW 2024.
In addition, further down the page you will find information about the 2024 Notre Dame Inclusive Teaching Academy, which is now accepting applications and will be hosted in June by Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, as well as additional resources, including information about the integration of Namecoach software into the University directory.
WTWW Events
Critical Pedagogies for Equitable and Inclusive Teaching
Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Time: 12:30–1:45 p.m.
Location: 246 Hesburgh Libraries
Register Here
In this session we will discuss and explore the ways in which principles from anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies can help instructors approach different elements of their course design process to promote justice and equity. We will focus primarily on practices that involve dialogue—as well as leveraging students’ knowledge and expertise—to inform not only what we teach, but how we teach.
1,000 Cut Journey: A Virtual Reality Learning Experience
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Time: Four Sessions Throughout the Day
Location: 231 Hesburgh Libraries
Register Here
This immersive workshop leverages the power of extended reality (XR)—an umbrella term that comprises augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality—to provide a unique and impactful learning experience.
Developed by researchers at Stanford and Columbia, 1,000 Cut Journey is an approximately 12-minute immersive scenario delivered via virtual reality headsets. In it, participants will embody a Black male, Michael Sterling, who experiences racism as a child through disciplinary action in the classroom, as an adolescent encountering the police, and as a young adult dealing with workplace discrimination.
Co-sponsored by Notre Dame Learning, OIT’s Teaching & Learning Technologies, and the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship
Inclusive Teaching With Canvas Lunch + Learn
Date: Thursday, January 18, 2024
Time: 12:30–1:45 p.m.
Location: 246 Hesburgh Libraries
Register Here
Inclusive teaching and learning take leadership, planning, and commitment. Both faculty and staff can be proactive stewards of student inclusion by knowing universal design strategies and implementing technologies that can help better meet learners’ needs—without having to wait for students to self-report a disability or any accommodation requests that follow. By adopting a mindset focused on DEI, we can “Consciously create an environment of mutual respect, hospitality and warmth in which none are strangers and all may flourish” and foster student belonging.
Intended for faculty and other instructors, this workshop will share strategies for promoting inclusion and accessibility using the Canvas learning management system along with course design and Universal Design for Learning principles. The event will also demonstrate two inclusive software integrations (Namecoach and Panorama).
Notre Dame Inclusive Teaching Academy
Call for Applications
Hosted by Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence, the Notre Dame Inclusive Teaching Academy (NDITA) provides robust, intensive training in support of the transformation of faculty teaching. Learn about, reflect on, and apply principles of inclusive pedagogy alongside colleagues from across the country as you redesign course materials and prepare to lead inclusive teaching efforts in your department and on campus.
The next session of the NDITA will be held from June 3–7, 2024, at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago. Registration, lodging, and meals are covered, and travel assistance may be available upon request.
To learn more and apply, visit learning.nd.edu/ndita.
Additional Resources
Namecoach Integration into University Directory
Members of the Notre Dame community represent a multitude of cultures, countries, and languages. One of the most basic ways to help people feel included in this community is to say their names correctly.
Namecoach is software that assists with this, allowing users to record the pronunciation of their names. It has been available to faculty and students as part of the Canvas learning management system, but it is now being added to the Notre Dame directory so that University staff have access, as well. This will have the added benefit of giving everyone—administrators, faculty, staff, and students—a centralized place to go for name pronunciations.
Notre Dame Learning Inclusive Teaching Resources
These resources offer practical strategies for fostering more inclusive, welcoming, and equitable classroom environments: