The Knapsack Institute
Evaluation: Your feedback is important to us! Please take a few minutes to complete this form.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being fully agree and 1 being do not agree at all, please answer the following questions:
1.
This Institute was very useful and valuable to me
N=19 average= 9.25 median = 9
2.
I would recommend this Institute to colleagues
N=19 average = 9.5 median = 10
3.
This Institute was what I expected
N= 19 average = 7.5 median = 8
4.
I received many concrete tools/strategies that will help me in my teaching
N= 19 average = 9.5 median = 10
5.
Speakers we knowledgeable and engaging
N=18 average = 9.5 median = 10
6.
The sessions were appropriate for someone with my level of experience
N= 18 average = 8.7 median = 8.5
7.
Housing on campus was satisfactory
N = 6 average = 8 median = 8
8.
Meals and food service were satisfactory
N= 18 average = 8.4 median = 8.5
9.
Which sessions did you find most useful?
 Everyone was helpful in each session – even when the primary format was similar I learned much from every conversation.
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Handouts were great
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Session II, III, IV, V (led by Dena?), Groundrules – 1 st day of class (what to do?) The Matrix___
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I found every session stimulating and generative for reflection and application
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That Matrix: A teaching framework, Begin Within: Communicating Social Identity; Movie – Color of Fear; Moving students toward activism and social change; Engaging your students
 I found all of the sessions useful (Also! The Globalization session was really good for me. I’d like to see more global concerns). I really like
Steve Samuel’s session on “Teaching from Privilege”. It allowed me to consider some of the bigger questions and challenges I face in implementing changes for social justice. All of you are wonderful and inspiring. Keep up the amazing work.
 Preempting Resistance Session VII, Managing Emotions Session VIII, Pam’s Presentation
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All sessions were excellent
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Teaching Inequity & Intersectionality with Films; Teaching Controversial subjects; Engaging your students
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All were helpful
 Brenda Allen’s sessions – Initial sessions on matrix and framing, Good things in every session although some overlap
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Trans101; The 1 st
day of class; Begin Within; Teaching Controversial Subjects
 Those with practical tools for engagement; Sessions II, III, IV, V; breakouts – Friday C, Thursday C, Saturday C & B
 Tre’s session was incredible and powerful. Film was excellent, received great strategies for social activists for students
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Ground Rules; teaching framework, teaching controversial subjects, moving students toward activism, GLBT in the classroom
 Triggers Session; Tre’s workshop
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Faculty Women of color session; GLBT in the classroom
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Teaching Strategies
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All of them. I appreciated specific strategies for teaching, dealing with resistance among students and specific areas (i.e. Trans101) I love the networking and ability to talk with other professionals.
 Brenda Allen, in addition to the four primary facilitators, was incredible
 Great conference! Hands down best conference I have attended. You all are a wonderful model of collaboration.
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Wonderful experience with thoughtful, courageous allies. Thank you!
10.
Which sessions did you find the least useful?
 Session VI. I thought the idea was good. I just didn’t think it was clearly explained.
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Honestly, I found all useful and it would be a disservice to say I liked one less.
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Again, I found the all useful. In general I know that I love to do things, to e active, so the more activities we can do: moving, talking, writing, etc. the more I feel I am able to integrate the information. So, in general, I’d like to see a balance of talking, listening, and doing in all of the sessions.
 Session V – Syllabus & Course requirements

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The Challenges and Opportunities o f teaching from Privilege
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There was too much sit time. Needed more movement. Dena and Abby very focused information. Andrea engagement high but little prep for breakout? Christina a bit dry, but delivery very good and good info.
 Transnational/Global – too vague, didn’t have a specific enough focus to get ideas for own courses.
 I took something away from every session. I cannot choose one that was least useful.
 Some of the breakouts were not very organized and didn’t follow topics enough.
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I thought they were all relevant.
11.
Do you have any recommendations for next year’s Institute?
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A more concrete way to work on syllabi but not sure how or when that could be facilitated – maybe one day after everyone has learned all the resources and exercises folks could work in groups to brainstorm how to selectively decide how to put things together in a specific course.
Certainly more ideas would continue to emerge, perhaps this is because it’s difficult to disengage at this point.
 More structured small group discussions within the all-group sessions. Address time management issues. Doing this social justice work is not just emotionally intense (w/ possibility of burn out) but also time intensive. What are possible “short-cuts”? What are possible efficiency measures to help manage one’s time?
 Specific session on disability and religion as topics of diversity. Perhaps longer b reaks or a little more down time out of the conference.
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I would love to have more time build in to reflect on what we are learning, either by writing, or by talking to a partner or a small group. I would also love to have some specific time (beside lunch time) to really work on syllabi in consultation with colleagues in pairs or groups. I think a session could be devoted to that. Build in more ways for us to process we are learning as we go along. You need to work with the graduate teacher program at CU Boulder. Look them up and talk to Dr. Laura Border.
 I don’t think having discussion questions at lunch is necessary. We didn’t follow them anyway. I also prefer eating in groups as opposed to pairs to get to know more people. Also, the breakout sessions on student evaluations should been in a full schedule format for everyone to hear.
 Some structure and organization. Right amount of session, breaks, time for meals and discussion topics.
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Workshops or entire institute developed for community organizations and non-profits.
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A workshop on language diversity/disability
 ½ day bus tour where we can shop, see a bit of the area, get some exercise; opportunity to have discourse on bigger issues in academy of epistemologies, power, tenure process, etc.
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More time for unstructured conversation, more time for walking around – perhaps a bus tour taking everyone to the Garden of the Gods for a walk; informal time to talk with other conference folks.
 I thought the workshop would focus more on bringing these issues into courses, not specifically geared toward race/class/gender/sexuality/ability etc. I got ideas about how to do some of that work, but the general sessions seemed focused upon using the Matrix intersectional model in race/class/gender courses, which I already do, though there are still things for me to learn i.e. effective activities, etc. To really transform the curriculum, it seems we need to focus on integrating issues in to the more general courses.
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More days to go over the tremendous amount of information. I will use the idea of intersectionality in all of the course I now teach and teach in the future.
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Have Friday night as a social night for groups to go out to eat and drink and not have to run back and see films. Could show films at lunch 1 day.
It seemed that was something many people wanted but also wanted to see films as well.
 Ideas, strategies for finding out how these issues impact/are present in other seemingly “neutral” topics/courses
 Switch some of breakout workshops on days 2 and 3 to make gender identity a more central issue in general discussions. Longer session for Tre
(maybe for everyone?)
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More general sessions on GLBT issues explored/examined
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Include workshop on how to deal with family issues around diversity work and managing those issues; a discussion about how to strategically bring up and deal with emotional outbursts from an empathetic perspective (e.g. – crying, anger, etc.)
 Would suggest that each large and break out sessions:
 Model and experiential exercise
 Lead participants to interact in pairs, trios, or quartets in sequenced discussions or activities to integrate content
 Insert action planning brainstorming sheet on which participants record one top priority idea for their course development.
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Call UCCS Knapsack participants to meet one time per semester to share ideas & experiences.