About Us

Founded in the summer of 2020, the Columbia English Department’s Pedagogy Colloquium responds to the exigency generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent shift to emergency remote instruction. Over that summer, a series of teaching initiatives organized in the form of workshops led by English faculty members highlighted the need for resources and support for online teaching, as well as a lively interest in dialogue about pedagogical content. The colloquium also grows out of prior conversations among faculty and graduate students about the importance of having a formalized space for discussing teaching principles, strategies, and needs that are specific to both literary studies and our institutional context at Columbia’s English and Comparative Literature department. To the best of our knowledge, as of fall 2021, we are the only graduate student colloquium dedicated uniquely to pedagogy that is currently active in an Ivy League English department, and we are excited about the possibilities for what such a space can offer for both our home department and our peer institutions.

This colloquium blog intends to archive conversations and resources concerning teaching support and development for graduate students. More broadly, our colloquium is invested in the following:

  • Assisting in graduate students’ general pedagogical development
  • Enabling dialogue specifically among graduate students about pedagogy, by providing opportunities for safe and private discussions on a range of topics related to teaching in the department
  • Enabling dialogue about pedagogy among graduate students and faculty alike, through events that are open to both graduate students and faculty, including those from other departments
  • Creating space for discipline-specific pedagogical strategies and topics
  • Responding to community needs and interests regarding pedagogical content
  • Preserving institutional memory on teaching practices, opportunities, and resources for Columbia’s English, Comparative Literature, and Theater graduate students
  • Fostering community among departmental Lead Teaching Fellows and facilitating liaising work between the department and the Center for Teaching and Learning