Anna Julia Cooper Center

Just a reminder to many of my faculty peers as we start the new academic year.

Even the most competent, honest, hardworking, talented students can suffer with anxiety, imposter syndrome, organizational challenges, and digital distress. Indeed, it can be the highest performing students who struggle most with these issues even when they are excited to be in our classes and willing to do the work.

And the lowest performers in your class might not be stupid, dishonest, or unwilling to work. Sometimes, they just can't pick it up the way that you are laying it down.

As faculty members we labor with these challenges too. We are trying to navigate all the complexities of our professional and personal lives and working to be present, prepared, and effective in the classroom and beyond.

Give your students and yourself some grace, some space, some humor, and some second chances.

See what happens if you start the semester assuming you are all in this together rather than looking for ways to limit, control, investigate, and police your students. See what happens if you create collaborate classroom covenants about issues like AI and academic honesty, rather than worrying about how you will "catch" them.

See what happens if you leave a week or two on the syllabus for your students to "choose their own learning adventure." See what happens if you build in one "mental health" day early in the semester for you and for them. See what happens if you assign one creative assignment in place of one traditional assignment. See what happens if you teach in a different environment or change how the classroom is arranged. See what happens if you add a playlist to your syllabus and invite your students to add to it as well.

Try just one thing that is different and see what happens. If you hate it, stop. If it's a disaster, never use it again. And give your students permission to try something new. See what happens if you reward the effort rather than outcome.

Drink a little more water.
Nap if you can.
Look for the opportunities that imperfection brings.

Try to remember that at times- in moments- if we are lucky Teaching can be really and truly the very best job in the world.

We got this.

I am looking forward to joining all my students at Wake Forest University as we embark on the journey of

Anna Julia Cooper-- raison d'etre and namesake of the Anna Julia Cooper Center. Check out this piece by Shirley Moody Turner who reminds us who she was.

"...he found her headstrong and beyond his efforts to control."

Opinion | How the Black female head of a top D.C. school was ‘punished for leading’ Nearly 120 years ago, educational pioneer Anna Julia Cooper was pushed out of her job, through tactics all too familiar today.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! Check out the Anna Julia Cooper Center's fall conversation series, "Sister Citizens." Host of NPR's Weekend Edition, Sunday Ayesha Rascoe joined our most recently released conversation. #sistercitizentalks #holidayseason

NPR's Weekend Edition host Ayesha Rascoe told some Black girl hair stories in our most recent . Melissa Harris-Perry shared a very interesting historical Black girl hair story as well.

Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry is entering the Democratic primary for North Carolina attorney general.

Joy Cook, a spokesperson for Deberry’s campaign, confirmed to The News & Observer on Friday that Deberry plans to run in the Democratic primary for attorney general, the state’s top law enforcement officer.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article281695883.html =cpy

Durham DA Satana Deberry joins the Democratic primary for NC attorney general Twice elected as Durham district attorney, Deberry will face U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson in the March 5 primary.

ICYMI: Our founder and president Melissa Harris-Perry gave a lecture at Brown University entitled, “Flags, Stairs and Folding Chairs: Marginalization and Strategies of Resistance in Higher Education,” which addressed topics such as affirmative action and the value of higher education. The event was part of a programming series from the Democracy Project, a PPE-organized initiative focused on investigating democratic ideas and themes.

Melissa Harris-Perry talks affirmative action, legacy admissions at PPE lecture - The Brown Daily Herald Wake Forest University professor and former MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry spoke about barriers in higher education at a Thursday lecture hosted by the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics.