Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) in Introductory Technical and Professional Communication (TPC) Courses Across Institutions

The social justice turn of the last two decades has spurred significant scholarship, but much remains to be done to gauge the impact of social justice scholarship on programmatic and curricular efforts. Programmatic and curricular development provides the primary, most important platform and "nurturing ground for promoting and enacting social justice" (p. 39), and that should engage our attention. This article is one such attempt, even if small, at contributing to this work by investigating justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) initiatives in introductory TPC classes across institutions in TPC programs nationwide. It reports the results of a survey of instructors of introductory TPC courses across US institutions as well as an analysis of syllabi used by those instructors. Noting a multiplicity of macro- and micro-level challenges to JEDI work, the authors call for increased and targeted curricular discussion of JEDI as well as focused support and training for instructors at the institutional and programmatic levels.