Looking back at APA 2023 and forward to ACT 2023; Guest Columnist Teceta Tormala

September 1, 2023

by Diane Finley, STP President

Welcome back to a new school year! I hope everyone’s year is off to a rousing start. I know we have already had to deal with a lot of natural disasters, and I hope anyone in those zones has stayed safe. Do let us know if there is anything STP can do to help.

Thanks to Melissa Maffeo for a great and successful program at the APA convention. We had some interesting sessions. You can learn more about STP’s programming at APA 2023 by viewing the August 2023 Special Issue of STP News.

The Executive Committee is gearing up for our meetings at the conference in October prior to and during the Annual Conference on Teaching. If you have anything of concern, please let me know so that we can discuss it.

Speaking of the Annual Conference on Teaching, Lindsay Masland and her committee are hard at work to put on another fabulous time in Portland. I hope you will be able to join us in person. Information about the schedule is available here. There will be an online conference in February 2024 as well.

As always, Lindsay has come up with a great opportunity for networking and connecting. She has announced that she is able to support Affinity Group meetings at ACT: On Location in Portland this year!  From Lindsay: “So, if you've ever wanted to meet up with other psych teachers who are like you—whether "like you" means a shared sociodemographic identity, a specific teaching context, or some other area of interest—this could be the perfect venue for you!  But, for these meetings to happen, we need folks to propose groups. So, if you'd like to make new friends and are willing to take on the very light lift of filling out an application for a potential group meet-up, please fill out this application by September 15th!”

The mention of affinity groups is a great lead-in to my guest columnist this month, Dr. Teceta Tormala from Palo Alto University. Teceta is also the Vice-President for Diversity and International Relations. At the 2022 ACT she talked about how she uses affinity groups in her teaching. She has brought many new ideas to STP, and I am excited for everyone to read about identity and teaching.

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Socioculturally-Embedded Intersectional Teaching in a Polarized World

Dr. Teceta Tormala, STP Vice President for Diversity and International Relations

I am cycling into my 19th year of teaching (wow!), and I think often about how my teaching- and the scholarship of teaching and learning- has evolved over the past two decades. When I was in graduate school and in my early years in academia, the teaching model of “the sage on the stage” predominated, and the prototypical sage was White, male, and in middle age. In my early years, as a Black woman in her late 20s and early 30s, the mold didn’t fit. As my time as an educator progressed, I came to more fully understand where I fit in the model of teaching and learning, and what was missing from my course content and teaching practice....

To read the rest of this letter and past letters from the STP President, click here.

To read Diane Finley's presidential theme and task forces for 2023, click here.