Abstract: What does it mean to make a course inclusive? How can we cultivate a learning environment where students are treated equitably and feel supported in their learning? In this interactive session, participants will reflect critically on how they approach and design their courses, questioning the assumptions and biases they bring to how the course “should” be taught, and what students “should” be able to do. Using a course equity map and a syllabus assumption activity, participants will reflect critically on who and what is being represented, highlighted or ignored in the curriculum, what aspects of a course could be more equitable and inclusive, and how the “hidden curriculum”—those aspects and expectations of a course only known and understood to some students—may be fostering inequity in their courses.

Susanna Calkins, PhD directed faculty initiatives at the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching at Northwestern University for almost two decades, and is now the founding Director of the Nexus for Faculty Success at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago in the United States. She served as a co-PI on the NSF-sponsored Inclusive STEM Teaching Project, an open online course that has served several thousand instructors across the United States, and led the 3-week Inclusive Teaching Practicum for instructors across Northwestern. She helped write the Inclusive Teaching Principles at Northwestern, has also facilitated multiple workshops around inclusive teaching and inclusive course design, and is currently leading a full-scale inclusive teaching initiative at RFUMS. She has presented on Inclusive Teaching at several national conferences, including at American Association of Colleges and Universities, and the POD professional development conference, and the INED conference for new faculty developers. She has co-authored two academic books—Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: The Reflective Professional (Sage, 2009) and Reflective Teaching (Bloomsbury, 2020). Her third co-authored book– Reflective Doctoral Education (Bloomsbury, 2025)--is in development and will focus on inclusive pedagogy in graduate education.