Raising Our Voices

Focusing on equity is a useful endeavor, but it can feel abstract. What does it mean to use the lens of equity to transform student success? For us, it means centering student voices and experiences, revolutionizing our textbooks and course builds, and transforming our teaching. Our goal is to create books and courses that are freely available, valid, and written by diverse teams from the field. More specifically, the Open Oregon Educational Resources Targeted Pathways Project is developing free, openly licensed textbooks and courses in Introduction to Sociology, Social Change, Social Problems, and Sociology of Gender. Our development model seeks to dismantle structures of power and oppression entrenched in barriers to course material access. We provide tools and resources to make diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) primary considerations when faculty choose, adapt, and create course materials. Here we share the dream, the model, and the steps that this collaborative statewide team took to create books, design courses, and pilot them successfully with students. The process includes an intersectional DEI approach to editing, multiple revisions for inclusion and diversity from the community, and a focus on accessibility for all. We will also share the preliminary outcomes of our work. A discussion of the steps and vision with expert peers guides our next steps.