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Building Anew: Anchoring Student Success in a Divided Landscape

Seminar

Restoring Positive Rights: The Freedoms to Learn, Teach, and Run Our Institutions

Thursday, January 22, 2026
3:45 PM - 4:45 PM East Coast USA Time
Location: Archives - Level M4

    Primary Presenter(s)

  • Elizabeth Norell

    Associate Director of Instructional Support
    University of Mississippi, United States

    PDF

    • Co-Presenter(s)

  • Kevin Gannon

    Director, Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence
    Queens University of Charlotte, United States

  • Thomas Tobin

    Senior Teaching and Learning Developer
    University of Wisconsin–Madison, United States

Seminar participation is limited to 25 people.

In this seminar session, we will invite participants to discuss student success through the lens of positive freedoms: the freedom to learn, teach, and run our institutions. Participants will engage with these positive freedoms in a prospective way rather than engaging with political efforts to curb these freedoms in reactionary ways. At the micro level, participants will articulate strategies for supporting student success through belonging and psychological safety as the positive freedom to learn. At the meso level, attendees will consider how this reframing of the positive freedom to teach can facilitate greater engagement and collective action on campus. And at the macro level, participants will articulate ways to advocate for the freedom to run our institutions in ways that appeal to the broader community and public.