Dr. José Villalobos, Dr. Todd Curry, and I are grateful to receive a UT System Curricular Innovation Grant to develop curricula for political science introductory courses. While our curricular innovation program focuses on introductory American Government and Politics courses, the program is designed to be adaptable for a variety of courses and flexible in terms of delivery format. We focus on four synergistic pillars, which can be integrated into courses through a variety of ways:

1) Community Engagement,

2) Empathetic and Ethical Leadership,

3) Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism (IDEA)

4) Politics and Policy in Action

In the spirit of community sharing and learning, I offer my work on the Empathetic and Ethical Leadership pillar and IDEA pillar. Each pillar includes a theory and rationale for the curricular innovation, learning outcomes, strategies and activities for implementation, and ideas for evaluation. These pillars are not prescribed best practices, but rather guiding practices that can be adapted and revised to fit institutional, instructor, and student needs.