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Intentionally Equitable Hospitality (IEH) is a facilitation praxis that was first developed by the co-directors and members of the grass-roots movement called Virtually Connecting (Bali, Caines, Hogue, DeWaard & Friedrich, 2019). Virtually Connecting (VC) has “challenged academic gatekeeping via rendering private hallway conversations that build social capital at face-to-face conferences into public hybrid conversations in which people who cannot attend conferences are able to participate”(Bali et al, 2019, para. 7). As such, IEH was initially focused on hybrid professional development intended to promote equitable access to conversations, with multiple volunteers as facilitators. This paper recontextualizes the concepts and spirit behind IEH to work in a formal educational context, replacing facilitators of VC conversations with teachers in formal contexts, and replacing participants at conferences with students in classes.

IEH begins with the notion that the teacher or workshop facilitator is a “host” of a space, responsible for hospitality, and welcoming others into that space. IEH requires intentionality about who is involved in the design of that space, noticing for whom the space is hospitable and for whom it is not. IEH is iterative design, planning, and facilitation in the moment. It also includes the interactions outside of formal gatherings that influence formal, synchronous interactions.