ABSTRACT
While the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the need for graduate faculty and students to learn alongside each other in virtual environments, adapting to technology and modality changes in college and university classrooms will persist. This chapter examines how three faculty members inhabiting different social locations (e.g., privileged and minoritized identities, pre-tenure and tenured) and teaching in a residential graduate preparation program in higher education and student affairs were called to enact new forms of reflexivity to create meaningful student-faculty relationships in virtual spaces, particularly when teaching courses related to social justice. This chapter highlights the values of one-on-one relationships and ethic of care coupled with how using strategies (e.g., use of the chat feature in zoom, ungrading) influenced the author’s approaches to sustaining meaningful relationships with students. In turn, this chapter concludes with considerations for educators preparing to teach social justice-based courses in virtual spaces.
