THINGS I’M DOING WELL

Spring 2021: “Content was engaging and the class was taught in a way that generated discussion which is hard when the class is online. This was my least stressful course, but I found myself engaging in learning outside class (conversations with peers, keeping up with news, etc.). Would have loved to take this class in–person.”

Winter Intersession 2020-2021: “Dr. B has an impressive ability to make the most difficult to grasp concepts of postmodernism, one of the more difficult subjects to jump into, intuitive to students who previously had little to no engagement with the tradition. Dr. B was able to provide extremely detailed, easy to understand responses to each question I asked over the course of the semester. Along with their excellent scholarship, Dr. B's use of their unique personal experiences to explain tensions and differences across different feminist traditions was especially helpful to develop a deeper understanding of the course material. Dr. B is easily one of the best instructors I have had during my time at VCU.”

Fall 2020: “B. is an incredible professor. They are probably the only professor that truly cares about each student's mental, emotional, and physical state. They structured the class to be very easily manageable and laid out all the expectations to get a specific grade through the contract graduating. They also did many semester check–in forms to gauge how the class was doing to adjust workload and assignments if the majority of the class was feeling a certain way especially given everything that happened this semester with the election, covid–19 and usual personal struggles.”

AREAS OF/FOR GROWTH

Spring 2020 (GSWS 201: Introduction to GSWS): “the amount of assignments due does get annoying and overwhelming. especially the reading notes, which usually felt arbitrary and a little childish. there are better and less annoying ways to make sure students are doing their readings, especially in a class where the content is largely just class discussion of the readings.”

Summer 2019 (GSWS 409: LGBTQ Health and Wellness): “I enjoyed the class. I struggled with the layout and organization of the syllabus – for me, it was difficult to follow and easy to overlook things.The organization of the readings was kind of odd as well – topics seemed grouped together kind of randomly and there was a lot of redundant content. I did learn a lot and I appreciated the time and consideration put into effectively teaching the material.”

Spring 2018 (GSWS 301: Feminist Theory): “I am a senior in Gender Studies and was required to take this introductory course on topics and materials that I am well versed in, have received praise from other professors about my understanding of complex theories, and have written substantially about the topics in the course. Bethany Coston [sic] consistently gave me poor grades on my work and when I asked for feedback they simply said, "I'm a harsh grader" and "make your answers longer," two comments which hold no value in actually improving my work. Coston's "consensus based" learning proved to be an utter failure. As students, we designed our own syllabus. But this led to a complete lack of structure, an unorganized classroom environment, and a lack of substantial teachable moments. Coston as a professor seemed well informed on the subject matter but the structure of the course itself was absolutely terrible. I have never had a more unproductive course that lacks any kind of academic accountability.”

FEEDBACK FROM GUEST LECTURES, COLLOQUIA, AND TRAININGS

Spring 2022: “I want to thank YOU two for making this possible for our students. It hit home for me as well as everyone who participated and we had a wonderful discussion about culture, disability, and how that translates into services and resources we can provide to our multilingual K-12 students, their families, and our schools. Dr. Coston, I wanted to send you a personal note of appreciation. Your presentation really helped me feel seen, and the challenges I have struggled with felt legitimized and recognized in a way that I have not felt in my career. I can't tell you how much that meant for me. Thank you for giving your Saturday to our team and our ambassadors. It meant a lot to all of us.”

Fall 2020: “So Truthful. On Point. Powerful. Inspiring. Thank you for reminding me that the light at the end of the tunnel may indeed be daylight and not another oncoming train.”

Spring 2020: “Dr. Coston - Good evening! I hope all is well with you! My name is [redacted] and I am a sophomore undergraduate student here at VCU. I just attended Lavender Graduation for one of my close friends and I was very inspired by your talk to the class of 2020. I can’t tell you how proud I am to be part of a community that has mentors such as you in its forefront. I know things are uncertain right now but, if possible, I would love to help out with your research efforts in the future! Thank you and I am wishing you and your families well during this time.”

Spring 2019: “Thank you for your presentation today and the time you took to put together our session at the Transforming Accessibility Initiative Mini-conference. I am on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion meeting in the School of Education and I thought your presentation was a wonderful  resource that I would like to share with our faculty and staff as a reminder and follow-up if this was something you may be comfortable with. We have a shared Google folder where we continue to collect materials for our committee and community and I would be honored if we could share a PDF of the presentation. Is this something that would be possible?  Would you be willing to also share where your identity wheel and the "dominance" slide were from? Did you create these? I would like to use them in my leadership classes as I think this supports the work I do around inclusion. I also teach a Freshman UNIV 291 course where we talk about identities and how these are shaped, supported or dismissed in educational institutions. If I end up teaching this again this coming fall, would you be interested in presenting this session to students? Thank you again for your work. I hope to continue to cross paths in the future.”

Fall 2018: “We spoke after class, I wanted to thank you for the validation that your words gave me. I’m essentially failing out of VCU because of the lack of ability to perform at my actual capability. I really appreciated what you said and how you spoke, I really resonated with it and it brought me a lot of comfort. I was wondering if you had any reading materials- I would love to learn more about being accessible. Ideally I would love to be able to educate more people on disabilities and identities. Thank you.”

Spring 2018: “I want to extend a giant THANK YOU to you all from the students and myself for your attendance and participation in this afternoon's critique of the Honors Studio student projects. The feedback you were able to share was invaluable, and your willingness to engage with the students was universally appreciated.”