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October 2021 Tuesday Tips
5th October, 2021
Dear Faculty,
Last year, the Office of Faculty Development committed to sponsoring and promoting programs and events that would support the implementation of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the classroom. This commitment was in line with the University’s strategic priorities and was supported by GI2025 student success funding that we were able to roll over from 2019-2020. Some of the best aspects of these efforts included the ability to create collaborations across divisions, the opportunity to challenge ourselves and our pedagogical practices, the possibility to extend these conversations across most disciplines and Colleges, and the chance to give voice to a number of faculty that truly are advocates and activists for the implementation of equity on campus.
Rebecca Nelson and I also participated in the third Middle Leadership Academy cohort last year, and I think I speak for both of us when I say that we learned a great deal of information and practices that we are committed to bringing to faculty development, including a number of resources about faculty’s role in this work.
This year we are excited to sponsor a second Teaching Racial & Social Justice (TRSJ) Series and I want to take this opportunity to invite you to our first workshop, Confronting the Traditional Learning Space: Anchoring Your course in an Antiracist, Inclusive, and Culturally Sustaining Framework, which will be held on Wednesday, October 13th from 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. in Zoom. This workshop will explore and unpack an evaluation tool that is grounded in the Anti-Racist Quality Learning and Teaching (AR-QLT) framework, developed by Dr. Daniel Soodjinda and used as a guide by a faculty learning community at CSU Stanislaus. The AR-QLT framework contains a set of 11 Antiracist, Inclusive, and Culturally Sustaining objectives, and faculty can use the AR-QLT instrument to assess their courses, learn where there are equity gaps, and take the steps necessary to meaningfully support their diverse classrooms.
Our next workshop, Throwing Out the Syllabus: Responding to Crisis in Real Time will be offered on October 27th from 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. in Zoom and will be led by Dr. Claudia Sofía Garriga-López.
We hope that you will join us for these important conversations.
Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D.
Faculty Development, Director
Campus zip: 026
Phone: 530-898-3094
cfferrari@csuchico.edu
https://www.csuchico.edu/fdev
Professor
Department of Media Arts, Design, and Technology
Campus zip: 504
Phone: 530-898-4647
If you’d like to comment on this or any other Tuesday Tip, visit the FDEV Blog.(opens in new window)
All past Tuesday Tips are curated on the FDEV website.
12th October, 2021
This Tuesday Tip is sent on behalf of joshuah whittinghill, Information Technology Consultant in the Technology & Learning Program
Hello faculty,
Whether we plan it or not, building community(opens in new window) is part of what we do as faculty. Not only is community being built, but it is crucial to students, as they find successes through connections they make with their peers as well as with us.
As education evolves, so do our experiences, abilities, and resources. This week’s Tuesday Tip is another opportunity to highlight engagement. One way to increase engagement for students, as well as ourselves, is to examine accountability. Have you ever asked yourself, “How do I hold myself accountable? How do I ensure students are holding themselves accountable?”
How do you create individual and collective accountability in your courses? According to accountability theory (PDF), it is common for members of a group (i.e. college classes) to develop a need to justify one’s behaviors to others, which causes one to consider and feel accountable for the process by which decisions and judgments have been reached. One way to cultivate accountability is by using learning agreements in your courses.
Learning agreements (PDF) enhance students’ education by helping them understand the importance of adhering to their own best practices and goals.
Learning agreements have also shown to:
- Create individual and group accountability
- Enhance students’ investment in their education
- Develop personal and community connections to collective successes
- Develop a guide for student to content engagement
- Build community
As the instructor, you can share two agreements you feel would be useful for the course, then ask students to add their agreements. Often creating course agreements is often useful to do the first week of the term, followed up during the second week with time for everyone to review and agree on agreements to that time.
In order to maximize course learning agreements, it is important that everyone has access to them, that the document can be amended during the semester. As the instructor, it is important to revisit them weekly during a class meeting, announcement, email, or text. Revisiting them can be resharing the link to your course learning agreement document, highlighting one or two agreements each week in a message or during class time.
Here is a Google doc with instructions (Google Doc) to create a shared and editable document so all members of the course have access and can contribute.
If you’d like to comment on this or any other Tuesday Tip, visit the FDEV Blog.(opens in new window)
All past Tuesday Tips are curated on the FDEV website.
19th October, 2021
Dear faculty,
It is not uncommon in Faculty Development to receive emails from lecturers asking for clarification about whether the programs and events that FDEV offers are open to lecturers or not.
I always found those emails and questions incredibly strange: "why wouldn’t they be open to lecturers, I wonder, since lecturers are faculty?"
Talking to colleagues who are lecturers and asking for clarification, however, I came to realize that this question really hides a more nuanced and problematic concern. What lecturers are really asking me is: am I welcome to these programs, as a lecturer?
Frankly, this more complex reading of the question has both humbled me tremendously and broken my heart, because this concern ultimately sheds light on the fact that several lecturers do not feel like they belong at our institution. And this is the part that is particularly hard to digest as faculty development director. There is a quote in this article (“Striking a Major Blow to Adjunctification(opens in new window)”) that matches this sentiment: “After moving to the city’s Eastside, I worked as an adjunct for three years. I commuted an hour north to a beautiful, prosperous, hypermodern campus, where I squatted in a borrowed office to eat my lunch, make my lesson plans and meet my students, as is common for contingent faculty. (One semester, a kind administrator advised me to squat in the conference room instead, though I had to hide my belongings in the filing cabinet when real faculty needed the space).” (Wyman, 2021).
I want to assure you that in Faculty Development we consider all faculty as “real faculty,” and while lecturers certainly face different experiences depending on Departments, Colleges, disciplines, etc., Faculty Development offers a space where every faculty belongs, independently of rank or other factors. For this reason, I am excited to announce a number of FDEV resources and initiatives to support lecturers:
- Faculty Development will be offering a Friday Forum on lecturer resources and support on Friday, October 29th, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. This is a chance to hear about resources on campus available from different units and offices.
- The November issue of the FDEV Zine will entirely be dedicated to lecturers’ information, conversations, and sense of belonging. The Zine will be released on Monday, November 1st.
- Faculty Development has committed funding to create a lecturer mentor position for spring 2022. A call for applications will come out in the next week or so.
- Faculty Development has also committed to planning a full-day lecturer academy event in spring 2022, in collaboration with the lecturers council. We will send more information in early spring.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the lecturers that have educated me about their experience, that have opened my mind about how different a lecturer’s experience can be when compared to that of a tenure-track or tenured professor, and ultimately have given true meaning to the question “are FDEV programs open to lecturers?”
Add a comment on our blog(opens in new window) to share ways FDEV can support you as a lecturer.
Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D.
Faculty Development, Director
Campus zip: 026
Phone: 530-898-3094
cfferrari@csuchico.edu
https://www.csuchico.edu/fdev
Professor
Department of Media Arts, Design, and Technology
Campus zip: 504
Phone: 530-898-4647
If you’d like to comment on this or any other Tuesday Tip, visit the FDEV Blog.(opens in new window)
All past Tuesday Tips are curated on the FDEV website.
26th October, 2021
Dear faculty,
Do you know that faculty have a dedicated space in the Rose Garden Room (MLIB 459)?
As many of you have transitioned to in person classes, I want to make sure that you are aware of this wonderful space (with an amazing view of campus).
Faculty are welcome to use the Rose Garden Room Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for writing, reading, grading, or just to take a break.
Per Meriam Library policy, food is currently not allowed and masked are required.
It is not a coincidence that the photos featured on the Faculty Development website include me: I have always found the Rose Garden Room an incredibly refreshing space to be productive while meeting new colleagues, and I hope that you will come enjoy this space (and “say hi” to us next door)!
Let us know how you like to use the Rose Garden Room by adding a comment(opens in new window) on our blog!
Chiara Ferrari, Ph.D.
Faculty Development, Director
Campus zip: 026
Phone: 530-898-3094
cfferrari@csuchico.edu
https://www.csuchico.edu/fdev
Professor
Department of Media Arts, Design, and Technology
Campus zip: 504
Phone: 530-898-4647
If you’d like to comment on this or any other Tuesday Tip, visit the FDEV Blog.(opens in new window)
All past Tuesday Tips are curated on the FDEV website.