The Open for Antiracism (OFAR) program co-led by CCCOER and College of the Canyons provides faculty from across the California Community Colleges with training on how to leverage OER and Open Pedagogy in order to make their teaching antiracist.
OFAR emerged as a response to the growing awareness of structural racism in higher education in the United States. In the summer of 2020, many institutions published statements decrying racism, calling for change, and putting equity into their strategic plans, but few if any expressed plans for changing teaching practices that directly affect students. OFAR started with the premise that faculty wanted to change their teaching to be antiracist and that OER and open pedagogy were tools that would facilitate that work.
The California Community Colleges, the largest system of higher education in the U.S. serving 2 million students at 116 colleges, provides a diverse and large sample within which to test this premise. Through OFAR’s first 4 years, it has supported 150 faculty at 40 colleges in making their teaching antiracist.
Colleges have attempted to integrate antiracist pedagogies into their classroom, however there hasn’t been one that looked at the problem through an open education lens and provided a supportive safe environment where faculty could learn about antiracist teaching and apply it in their own classroom. OFAR provides training on how OER and Open Pedagogies can be leveraged for antiracism in addition to hosting monthly webinars on a variety of topics, such as “Practical Steps for Implementing Antiracist Pedagogy with OER” with Amanda Taintor and Suzanne Wakim, and “Black Feminist Pedagogy and Open Education,” with Jasmine Roberts-Crews.
A key element of success arises from bridging the gap between Open Education and other realms of knowledge and activism.
OFAR also engages in rigorous research to explore the impact of antiracism on student learning and faculty teaching. Our year three research illustrates the impact OFAR has had on student learning and experience and stands as a model for how to implement actionable DEI measures in higher education. A highlight of findings from year three shows that faculty participants’ confidence increased significantly.
Multiple institutions across the US have adapted and used OFAR’s course in their own context: Evergreen Valley College in California, Cosumnes River College in California, the Wisconsin Technical Colleges, Lehman College in the Bronx (part of the City University of New York), and Northern Virginia Community College. We hope that these innovations and adaptations of OFAR are a positive sign of how Open Education can support antiracist work to evolve in different educational settings.
Within the context of US community colleges, OFAR is the only formal professional development program to explicitly show how Openness can support antiracism.
Award Nominator
What a fantastic project and huge resource to not only faculty and students in California, but anyone interested in anti-racism education.
Award Reviewer
