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Raquel Rivera Pinderhughes, Statement on Teaching

My pedagogical approach, course design, and student learning goals are influenced by five teaching objectives: First, I want students to acquire a solid understanding of the concepts, issues, debates, and research discussed in class. Second, I want to establish an environment where students can respectfully engage in dialogue, debate, and critique. Third, I want to enhance each student’s critical thinking, reading and writing skills, and help them develop skills to process and synthesize complex, often contradictory information. Fourth, I want students to understand the relationship between theory and application. Fifth, I want students to become active learners, to feel that they are an integral part of the collective learning process to which we all can contribute and from which we all learn and grow.

I have been involved in many efforts which enhance undergraduate teaching and learning in my institution, community and profession. These include: working with a small cohort of faculty and students to establish an Environmental Studies Program at SFSU and, working with faculty at SFSU and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to establish a joint Masters Program in City and Regional Planning. I have also developed a series of innovative approaches to teaching which include: (1) an international study abroad course focused on environmental planning and policy; (2) having students work in small teams to research, design, and build appropriate technologies such as composting toilets, solar food dryers, bicycle cargo systems, etc., which are then featured on my web site; (3) working with students to produce a how-to manual for sustainable urban living which we are planning to publish; (4) producing a CD ROM of high quality student PowerPoint presentations which summarize successful urban planning initiatives throughout the world and will be made available to professors and students in US and European universities; and (5) encouraging students to do the detective work involved in cradle to grave analysis of critical natural resources such as gold, copper, fossil fuels, timber, water, rubber, bauxite, etc.

My most recent contribution to undergraduate education stem from my becoming the Director of a very unique program that SFSU has developed with the Delancey Street Foundation - a nationally renowned alternative sentencing and reeducation program for convicts and drug addicts. This highly innovative, one-of-a-kind undergraduate education program provides Delancey Street residents with the opportunity to pursue a college education on site at Delancey Street. All of the students in the program are recovering drug abusers who have spent time in prison and are now long-term residents (from 5 to 15 years) in Delancey Street. The SFSU/Delancey Street is taught entirely by volunteer faculty. After recruiting faculty, I work with them to develop their syllabi, and serve as the liaison to the SFSU departments whose courses they are teaching off-campus. In addition to directing the program and advising students, I am the core professor in the Urban Studies major. All of the students in the program had been out of an educational setting for many years; most had limited academic skills to draw on upon entering the program. Most faculty teaching in the program focus on substantive issues. My particular goal and role has been to help students enhance their skills in critical analysis, research methods, literature reviews and to improve their written and oral presentation skills. This has happened gradually over the past two years. The juggling act required to teach, advise, and help the students to process what they are learning and accomplishing by pursuing an undergraduate education is even more challenging then the juggling act required to administer the program which I at least share with extremely competent staff at SFSU. We expect the first cohort of Delancey Street students to graduate in Spring 2004; the second cohort to graduate in Spring 2005; both with honors since most students have received high grades. The program fulfills SFSU’s mission to provide an undergraduate education to those who seek to increase their knowledge and understanding of the world and gain skills that will help them to contribute to society and serves as a model for how universities can work with local communities.

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