Todxs cuentan: building community and welcoming humanity from the first day of class

Abstract

Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering academic experiences; but no single academic experience is joyful, meaningful, and empowering to everyone. How do we build academic spaces where every participant can thrive? Audre Lorde advises us to use our differences to our advantage. bell hooks highlights the key role of building community while addressing power dynamics. Rochelle Guti\'errez emphasizes the importance of welcoming students' full humanity. This note discusses some efforts to implement these ideas in a university classroom, focusing on the first day of class.