Teach-In celebrates 10 years of raising awareness through collaborative sessions

The 10th Teach-In, with more than 30 sessions under the umbrella of "Power, Privilege and Difficult Dialogues," will offer two days of education on November 9-10 in Allendale and Grand Rapids.

Sessions will be held in a hybrid format on November 9 from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. at the L. William Seidman Center, DeVos Center and Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences; and on November 10 from 8:30 a.m.-9 p.m. at the Kirkhof Center. View the two-day schedule online.

Sessions are collaboratively created and presented by students with faculty or staff members. Genevieve Elrod, assistant professor of nursing and member of the Teach-In subcommittee, said it's the collaborative nature of Teach-In sessions that sets this event apart from others.

"Having the Teach-In as an annual signature event, for 10 years now, says so much about Grand Valley’s commitment to disrupting inequity and empowering all of its community members to make meaningful change," Elrod said.

Larbi Al Moutaa, Student Senate vice president for diversity affairs, will participate in a panel discussion about activism on campus. He encouraged all students to attend at least one session, adding they typically offer perspectives from other lived experiences.

"When I attended the Teach-In for the first time, it opened my eyes to a lot of social issues that I wasn’t aware of due to my different experiences," Al Moutaa said. "We cannot solve an issue without knowing that it exists. The Teach-in is a powerful knowledge tool to not only be aware of the current issues that our communities are facing, but also to get a blueprint for how to act upon it, how to help."

Teach-In sponsors are University Academic Senate, Student Senate, Inclusion and Equity Institute, and the Office of the Provost.