Mastering the Hidden Curriculum: Equity in the Academic Experience (2/2)

In our last post, we wrote about Georgetown’s Mastering the Hidden Curriculum seminar, offered by the Georgetown Scholarship Program (GSP), in collaboration with Designing the Future(s) initiative and taught by exemplary faculty members. The class was designed for and by first-generation college students to uncover the norms and expectations on college campuses that often go untaught to students without college educated family members or college preparatory high school educations. By interrogating the research, theory, and personal testimonies around the first-generation experience, students develop their understanding of higher education as a system and to build community around their shared identity of being in the first generation of their family to engage with this system. With this, Mastering the Hidden Curriculum aims to increase students’ feelings of preparedness, and their sense of belonging, both critical for student success.

Dr. Marcia Chatelain, associate professor of History and African-American studies and one of the faculty members teaching Mastering the Hidden Curriculum, reflected on the necessity of the course in a The Chronicle of Higher Education article. Dr. Chatelain highlights the dual function of the course to instruct but also interrogate. She emphasizes how it’s not providing “an intensive etiquette lesson, designed to tell students to adopt the practices of an elite class,” but instead “tutorials on power.” While students learn and grow through this course, the goal must not be to change students to fit the current system, but instead to teach them how to engage with a system designed to consolidate and gate-keep access to power. Through this type of education, they can begin to envision a different future in higher education, “one in which a parent’s alumni status or connections or wealth are not the only ways to realize success.” Envisioning a different way of being is the first step toward creating a more equitable model for higher education.

Educational equity is inextricably linked with curriculum. Mastering the Hidden Curriculum is an innovative addition to Georgetown University’s curriculum, but it is only the beginning, not the end, of transforming curriculum to create a more equitable experience among Georgetown students. To support these innovations and spur collaborations across institutions dedicated to equity in higher education, Georgetown University will be hosting the first Summer Institute on Equity in the Academic Experience with the University of Texas, Austin, in collaboration with the American Talent Initiative this summer. You can find more information about the Summer Institute here.

In the words of Dr. Chatelain, join us as we “confront our histories of exclusion and choose a future of inclusion.”

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Author:

Mark Joy: Senior Research & Programs Associate for The Hub for Equity and Innovation in Higher Education