At this roundtable, historians from four liberal arts colleges will discuss their approaches to inclusive teaching. What are the best ways to build a classroom that is accessible and welcoming to all students—regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, and background? How can faculty incorporate anti-racist pedagogy into their classes, and how can we prepare students for difficult conversations, especially when those discussions may affect students differently based on their experiences, backgrounds, and social identities? How can we design assignments and classroom exercises that take our students needs into account? The discussion in this session will be wide-ranging but will touch on questions like these.

This roundtable is part of a three-part series on the future of history at small liberal arts colleges. In recent years, liberal arts college history departments have faced many of the same challenges and opportunities as departments at other types of institution, but the experiences of faculty and students at SLACs are in many ways distinctive; liberal arts college history departments have also been the site of exciting experiments in curriculum and pedagogy likely to interest the larger field of history. This series is intended to give SLAC history faculty a place to discuss issues of common concern, to build a greater sense of community, and to highlight the exciting things taking place in their departments, while entering into dialogue with each other (and the rest of the field) about the future of the historical profession.

Although faculty at small liberal arts colleges are the primary audience for this roundtable, anyone is welcome to come, including prospective SLAC faculty and other historians interested in learning about the future of history at liberal arts colleges.