Faculty Resources

Fall Educator Resource Institute

Allegheny faculty, staff, and administrators were invited to participate in the Fall 2024 Educator Resource Institute (ERI) on Monday, August 19. If you missed it or want to look back at the materials, you can find the full schedule here (which also contains links to the slide decks that our presenters used).

Whether you attended the ERI or not, please take the time to fill out this survey. Our presenters would appreciate your feedback if you attended. If you didn’t attend, I would love some feedback on what you would like to see in future ERIs and what the obstacles to attending are.

Setting Up Your Courses

Check out the Preparing for a New Semester page for reminders and tips for the new academic year. In particular:

• Take a look at the Syllabus Checklist page as a reminder of the required and recommended syllabus content. This page summarizes the information found in Section 9.1 of the Faculty Handbook.
• Don’t forget to update your syllabus statements if you’re reworking a syllabus from a previous semester.
• If you are teaching a course that has an SP or PD distribution requirements tag, please make sure you are able to identify at least one assignment that will assess that learning outcome. The rubrics that will be used to assess those learning outcomes can be found here (SP) and here (PD). Faculty teaching courses with other DR tags should still consider how specific assignments could be used to assess those learning outcomes, as we anticipate expanding this requirement to additional tags in future semesters.
• If you’re thinking about AI and your classroom, Elon University & AAC&U have published this student guide to AI. The guide is shared under a Creative Commons license, so you can create a version that more closely matches your needs (see the statement on page 20 about reuse).

Reports of Student Experience (RSEs). The fall RSE survey will be open during the week of December 2, so please make sure that you set aside time for students to complete the survey during class that week. This survey is administered via the RSEs link that appears in the navigation menu in each of your Canvas courses. For this reason, all courses that are eligible for RSEs must have published Canvas sites, preferably by the Add/Drop deadline so that reminders don’t need to be sent out to instructors. This doesn’t mean that entire courses need to be managed through Canvas. You can find instructions on how to create a minimal Canvas course in this document.

You may also want to make time to administer a midterm course reflection, followed by a post-semester course reflection.

Canvas Information

Canvas Workshops. On Thursday, August 15, we held two virtual Canvas workshops: one on Content Creation and the other on Outcomes, Rubrics, & Learning Mastery. If you missed them, you can watch the recordings.

Course Mergers. Library Services, working with the Office of the Registrar, has developed a streamlined process for merging course sections in Canvas. Faculty who are teaching more than one section of a course may wish to request that the sections be merged into a single Canvas course. To request a merger, please use the Request a Canvas Course Merger button on the Library Resources for Faculty page, and submit the form provided. Requests will be processed by Library Services after approval by the Registrar.

Please allow time for processing. It is imperative that course merger requests be submitted before classes begin. Course mergers cannot be completed after students have submitted assignments or participated in discussions in the course. Please note that this process supersedes the former methods of emailing LITS or opening a WebHelp ticket.

Canvas Support. The Canvas Tips page contains information about Canvas resources and support, course set-up reminders, troubleshooting suggestions, and a link to materials from previous Canvas workshops. Two quick reminders:
– If you’ve copied content from a previous course, watch out for issues with invalid links or unpublished images (the dreaded padlock!). You can identify these quickly using the Course Link Validator. See this article for more information.
– If you can’t find one of your courses in Canvas, click on the Courses icon and then select All Courses. Click the star next to any course to add it to your Courses menu and your Dashboard. See more information here.

Updates to the Honor Code

As faculty write syllabi and assignments, please remember to give students clear guidance on what is and is not acceptable in your course. This guidance should be repeated to students at appropriate intervals, especially as tests and assignments are coming due. Faculty teaching classes with first-year students should be especially mindful to teach academic integrity to students, as the standards and habits these students are used to may not be the same from high school to college.

The Honor Code was revised by student vote in Spring 2024, but nothing has changed in terms of the expectations or process for faculty to report suspected Honor Code violations. The Honor Code reporting form is here and the up-to-date Honor Code is here. A summary of the changes made in the new version is posted here.

The most significant change for 2024-2025 is that the expedited hearing process has been replaced by a mutual agreement process, which brings the Honor Code more into alignment with our non-academic code of conduct for students. 

Please remember that if you have unresolved Honor Code cases from Spring 2024, those will proceed according to the old rules. 

Please contact Ian Binnington (ibinning@allegheny.edu) with any questions!

Updates from the Library

Book Suggestion/Review. Why Learn History (When it’s Already on your Phone), Sam Wineburg

How do we get today’s students excited about reading and learning about history and other liberal arts topics? Wineburg seeks to address how today’s students learn (going against much of what we know about Bloom’s Taxonomy) and suggests how educators can navigate this cultural shift in technology, learning, and thinking. This book is available in the Faculty Development section of Pelletier Library (main floor), call number: 973 W725 w

Research Librarians & Class Visits. Research librarians are available to work with faculty to design classes to help students develop the information literacy and/or research skills they need for their courses.

Using the Request a Library Session button on our Research Instruction Classes page, please request two possible dates and times for a librarian visit to your class. We appreciate your flexibility with scheduling.

Librarians can visit your classroom, or you can bring your students to Pelletier for the session.

A list of suggested possible topics can be found on the same page. Please let us know which would be particularly important for your students to learn, or suggest additional topics.

What’s New.

• The newly instituted Research Desk (located at the front entrance of Pelletier Library) will be staffed during peak library usage times. Beginning on Tuesday, August 27, students, faculty, staff, and community patrons may stop at the desk during posted times, or schedule an appointment with a Research Librarian. Research Desk Hours are 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm Monday – Thursday, with additional scheduled hours (to be determined) during the day.
• The Dean of the Library, Tressa Snyder, will be reaching out to departments to discuss library support of research, collection development, and programmatic needs.
• Two new librarians have joined Pelletier Library Staff! Andrew Miller, Research & Digital Humanities Librarian, and Chris Anderson, Archives & Special Collections Librarian.  Andrew and Chris will be reaching out to faculty regarding research needs. Both will be teaching library instruction sessions and serving at the Research Desk.

Fall 2024 Opportunities

Upcoming Workshop

Join our colleagues Alexis Hart and Byron Rich for the one-hour online session “No Robot Left Behind: AI and Your Fall Classes,” Wednesday, August 28, from 12:15-1:15 EDT.

This session is specifically tailored for liberal arts divisions in Art, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. This session will be run by Byron Rich (Assistant Provost of Academic Innovation: Director of Academic Innovation Partnerships) and Alexis Hart (Professor of English and Director of Writing) of Allegheny College, Caitlyn Deeter (Instructional Technologist) of Rollins College and Lew Ludwig (Professor of Mathematics; Director, Center for Learning and Teaching) of Denison University.  This session will begin with discussing AI with your students, providing you with tools to establish clear and effective AI policies. Following that, we’ll break into groups by academic division, allowing for in-depth engagement with AI strategies and insights relevant to your field. Discover how faculty in various disciplines are already using AI tools to enhance teaching. Share your insights, pose questions, and prepare yourself with the knowledge to create a balanced, fair, and academically rigorous environment for the upcoming semester. Please note, due to the division-specific breakouts, we will not be able to record this session for later viewing. We will provide a webpage link with resources to all who register. 

 Sign up HERE for this online event (a Zoom link will be sent the day before).  For questions, please reach out to Collen Monahan Smith of the GLCA.

 Fall Teaching Circle

A teaching circle is a group of up to a dozen faculty members who meet on a regular basis throughout the semester to share issues, ideas, and advice connected to their teaching in a confidential and supportive setting. We are in the process of identifying someone to facilitate the fall teaching circle. Please watch for a My Allegheny announcement for information about dates and times, plus a sign-up form. Please contact Director of Faculty Development Lisa Whitenack with any questions.

Writing Accountability Group

Are you an untenured faculty member (tenure-track, NTTR, visiting, adjunct, etc)? Do you have scholarly writing projects you need to complete and just have a hard time finding the time? Do you like to have camaraderie while you work? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please join us for the Writing Accountability Group (WAG)! Starting September 20th, we will be meeting one Saturday a month to write (9:00-12:00), socialize during lunch (12:00-1:00), and write some more (1:00-4:00). Lunch is provided. If you are interested in joining us, please complete this form. Note that completing this form does not mean you are required to attend every meeting. You also do not need to attend the entire duration every Saturday to join. If you have any other questions about WAGs, please email Chris Normile at cnormile@allegheny.edu. This group is sponsored by the Office of the Provost.