Book Reads

TTaDA Offerings

The Teaching Transformation and Development Academy offers numerous book reads throughout the year focused on leadership; teaching practices; universal design for learning (UDL); diversity, equity, and inclusion; and more.

Fall 2023 Book Read

Bestselling author David Treuer is an Ojibwe Indian from Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, two Minnesota Book Awards, and fellowships from the NEH, Bush Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. His book, 'The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee' was a 2019 finalist for both the National Book Award and Carnegie Medal. He divides his time between his home on the Leech Lake Reservation and Los Angeles, where he is a Professor of English at USC.

Keynote - The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Recording)

Spring 2022 Book Read

The Teaching Transformation and Development Academy’s Spring 2022 book read was Elevate by Robert Glazer.

In Elevate, Robert Glazer reveals four life-changing principles ― or capacities ― that will allow you to overcome self-limiting beliefs, establish positive habits, and find your "why." As we look to elevate ourselves, we mean so much more than beating the competition. After all, our greatest competition is ourselves! We need to find ways to consistently outperform ourselves and our own expectations. Robert Glazer has built a career on accelerating productivity and careers. ELEVATE is based on his five foundational elements necessary for increasing our capacity: Finding Your Why, Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs, Setting Goals and Creating Accountability, Maintaining Health and Wellness, and Establishing Routine and Positive Habits. The key is elevating yourself beyond the edge of your current abilities. Challenge yourself, and the result will inspire others to rise along with you. It's time to break free of your limits.

(Video) Kickoff Event with President Andrew Armacost and Chief of Staff Rob Carolin

(Video) Wrap-up Event with AVP HR & Payroll Services, Peggy Varberg and Chair of Physician Assistant Studies, Jeanie McHugo

Fall 2021 Book Read

In alignment with One UND Strategic Plan and the Fall Innovative Learning Symposium, Academic Affairs and TTaDA invite faculty, staff and graduate students to participate in the 2021 Fall Book Read featuring Diversity’s Promise for Higher Education: Making It Work by Daryl G. Smith. In this book, Smith brings together research from a wide variety of fields to propose a set of clear and realistic practices that will help colleges and universities locate diversity as a strategic imperative and pursue diversity efforts that are inclusive of the varied—and growing—issues apparent on campuses without losing focus on the critical unfinished business of the past.

To become more relevant to society, the nation, and the world, while remaining true to their core missions, colleges and universities must continue to see diversity—like technology—as central, not parallel, to their work. Indeed, looking at the relatively slow progress for change in many areas, Smith suggests that seeing diversity as an imperative for an institution's individual mission, and not just as a value, is the necessary lever for real institutional change. Furthermore, achieving excellence in a diverse society requires increasing institutional capacity for diversity—working to understand how diversity is tied to better leadership, positive change, and research in virtually every field, student success, accountability, and more equitable hiring practices.

This book emphasizes a transdisciplinary approach to the topic of diversity, drawing on an updated list of sources from a wealth of literatures and fields. The tables and figures have been refreshed to include data on faculty diversity over a twenty-year period, and the book includes new information about gender identity, embedded bias, student success, the growing role of chief diversity officers, the international emergence of diversity issues, faculty hiring, and important metrics for monitoring progress.

Spring 2021 Book Read

The Teaching Transformation and Development Academy’s Spring 2021 book read was How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones.

This coming-of-age memoir depicts the experiences of a young, black, gay man cultivating his identity in the American South. In our continued Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts on campus, we will highlight this intersectional memoir as part of our broadening inquiries into DEI work by uplifting black voices during spring semester’s Black History Month.

Fall 2020 Book Read

The Teaching Transformation and Development AcademTTaDAaDA) led a campus-wide book study on How to be Antiracistist by Ibram X. Kendi. Praised by the New York Times as “The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind,” Kendi’s groundbreaking work provides an essential counterpoint in the national conversation about race and resonates in this collective moment of reckoning. Kendi introduces—being an anti-racist—sets forth the idea that people can either be racist or anti-racist, and that there is no in-between. Racists, he argues, are people who support racist policies through their action, inactions, or ideas; anti-racists actively confront racial inequalities. Being neutral isn’t enough. Kendi urges us to actively combat racist systems and policies, and provides tools to do so.

Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and the Founding Director of the Boston University Center Antiracistist Research as well as a the recipient of the National Book Award (in 2016 for Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America), a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a contributor at The Atlantic and a CBS News correspondent.

Book Read Companion Guide