Dear CLASP Faculty,

First and foremost, thank you for taking part in the work of the Critical Literacies Achievement and Success Program (CLASP)!

CLASP is a program designed specifically to support, advocate for, and celebrate the important work of first-generation, multicultural, low-income, or otherwise underrepresented students on the WSU campus. As a program, we are committed to challenging the “deficit model” of education. That is to say that CLASP views each student as an indispensable source for unique and personalized skills, values, and experiences that merit understanding, security, and compassion. In this sense, students are not so much passive recipients of instruction and information; they are profound agents and colleagues in matters of curricular design, faculty development, and community building.

CLASP partners with programs, institutions, and departments across campus to administer faculty development programming that sponsors efforts to collaborate with and defer to students in identifying and confronting issues of cultural competency, microaggressions, stereotype threat, “cultural taxation,” intersectional identities, etc.

As a CLASP faculty member, you play an important role in actualizing the hope and promise of CLASP pedagogy for our students. In adopting and delivering on these hopes and promises, though, you will cultivate the sort of efficiency and responsiveness in your teaching that will help you grow as an individual, a professional, and a citizen. 

In closing, CLASP thanks you for your part in all of these efforts. As you approach the task of working with CLASP students in the coming years, we encourage you to take part in our faculty development programming, to take a look at (and contribute to) our growing database of instructional and programmatic resources, to seek out opportunities for more intensive and long-term partnerships with CLASP through our certificate and fellows program, and to ask questions about ways in which to support first-generation, multicultural, low-income, or otherwise underrepresented students on the WSU campus.

We look forward to working with you in the coming months (and hopefully years). Have a wonderful day!

 

Sincerely,

 

Anna Plemons

CLASP Director