{"id":7579,"date":"2026-05-01T09:48:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/?p=7579"},"modified":"2026-05-01T09:48:56","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:48:56","slug":"reflections-and-an-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/2026\/05\/reflections-and-an-invitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections and an Invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

from Learning and Teaching Commons Student Partner Jess Yusko<\/strong><\/p>\n

To continue the theme of mindfulness as an approach to teaching and learning, I would like to talk to you about the pace of life and the necessity, at times, of slowing down. This discussion is framed within the context of a project I have worked on this academic year, a zine entitled \u201cEvergreen Faculty Supporting Inclusion.\u201d As the team first discussed ideas for this project, we had hoped to publish three zines, one per quarter, covering different subtopics found within our publication \u201cFramework for Inclusive and Culturally Sustaining Teaching at Evergreen.\u201d It\u2019s kind of a mouthful, isn\u2019t it? Precisely due to this reason, we hoped to unpack certain key themes in the framework and reintroduce them in a new context, relating the concepts to practical tips and advice from faculty, as well as making the new zine format fun and visually engaging.<\/span><\/p>\n

I began this project almost a year ago, and it is exciting to see the stages it has gone through and the ways we have had to adapt and adjust our expectations, especially relating to this idea of slowing down. As a student of the visual arts, the idea of having hand illustrations to accompany the text was important to me. I really wanted to present a high-quality publication, something that I would happily attach my name to and showcase for faculty during Spring quarter at the launch party and faculty social. The idea of rushing through to get one zine published per quarter, as a solo project began to feel unmanageable. I felt as though I would have to choose quantity and speed of publication over quality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had been reading about the practice in art, of mindfully approaching your work, slowing down and not rushing the output. We are not machines, after all, we are human. This is what I wanted to present to faculty and to the Evergreen learning community, who I hoped would benefit from (and enjoy) reading this zine: was that it was made by a human, and clearly reflected all the quirks and idiosyncrasies, and imperfections – reflecting the authentic voice and personality of the person who wrote it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wanted to highlight interviews and quotes from faculty in their own words too, to give a feel for who we are as a learning community. We have personality at Evergreen! This learning community is unique in many ways – from choosing your own path, un-grading, to experiential and interdisciplinary learning. We also aim to be a place that is supportive of multicultural identities, undocumented students, and trans and queer identities. We are different here; and that is one of our strengths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the spirit of celebrating what makes us different, I hoped to uplift many of the ways that faculty at Evergreen are choosing to differentiate the ways learning is demonstrated and assessed, and providing clear and transparent assignments (benefitting not only neurodivergent learners, but all students). As an incredible example of the way Evergreen demonstrates this type of flexibility and individualization, I was given permission to take longer on this project, which allowed it to evolve into a full size 32 page magazine, covering just one subsection of the Framework for Inclusive and Culturally Sustaining Teaching. Being able to cover this one area more in depth, I hope reflects more depth and substance. It definitely allowed me to gain knowledge and clarity relating to the topic of inclusive strategies for neurodivergent students. I would like to thank Carolyn Prouty for meeting with me to answer some questions and provide helpful feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am excited to see which topics the next interns will research and work on, and how they will create their own projects, to carry on this work. I am interested to see how their work will represent their own individual strengths and personalities, reflecting the diverse and colorful kaleidoscope of talent, passion and academic rigor that makes up our unique and dynamic learning community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Student learning and teaching partners, who function as interns at the Learning and Teaching Commons, gain valuable experience in project planning and development, event planning and promotion, fundraising for projects and working on solo projects as a member of a team. This is clearly a labor of love for Assistant Director, Jaime O\u2019Connor, who mentored me and supported me in the development of this project. Jaime doesn\u2019t have to do any of this, but her love for working with students inspired her to bring a student intern to the team, to offer professional experience in educational development. At this time last year, I probably wouldn\u2019t have imagined I would be creating original materials for education development, especially within higher education. My professional background was in early childhood education, so I have gained an immense amount of knowledge, especially relating to the topics of equity and belonging in higher education.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working on projects alongside the Social Justice Center and networking with professionals such as Dr. Leticia Nieto in my research has been incredibly rewarding. If I had to say, I really think that one of the best parts of researching this project was interviewing Evergreen faculty. I had the opportunity to catch up with professors I had courses with years ago, and also meet newer faculty at summer institutes, learning from the wisdom they bring to our community. I wish I could have included even more interviews with faculty because you are the reason we, as students, are able to learn and grow in such an unhindered environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope you will all come to the social on the afternoon of May 4th, in the lobby of Evans Hall, to spend time in community with one another (have snacks and refreshments!) and celebrate the launch of this long-awaited, human-made zine. You will get to see original artwork from the making of the zine, meet the author(me!), and also have the chance to make your own zine pages – it will be fun! <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from Learning and Teaching Commons Student Partner Jess Yusko To continue the theme of mindfulness as an approach to teaching...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9875,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7581,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579\/revisions\/7581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}