Faculty Resources

From the Director of Faculty Development

Happy end of the academic year! This will likely be the last Faculty Development Digest until July or August, as I know people have all kinds of summer plans that do not include reading emails. I will not be having regular faculty office hours during the summer, but I will still be available for your faculty development needs. Like many folks, I do have some travel planned (DC for research at the Smithsonian, NOLA for a conference, and hopefully somewhere beachy for a vacation), so I may not be able to immediately answer questions via email. However, we’re putting plans in place to make sure things like Oracle approvals will still happen smoothly. I hope that whatever your summer plans are, you get some time for fun, relaxation, and recharging.

On to other important reminders, deadlines, and so forth:

Spring ERI: Please remember that the Spring Educators Resource Institute is on May 11, 2026. In case you somehow missed it in the many excited announcements, we will have James Lang running two excellent workshops in the morning (and we’ll have some of his books available!). You can find the full schedule here, and any workshop materials shared with me will be posted to the schedule. Please note that there is now a workshop on Tues. May 12, which has a separate RSVP from the Monday ERI activities – this workshop will feature Carnegie Mellon University’s Norman Bier, who will talk about how the REALChem and Learnvia team leveraged the science of teaching and learning (SoTL) to develop tools to help students, including AI-powered tutoring tools. The RSVP for this Tuesday session is needed by May 6, as lunch will be provided.

Reimbursement & travel advance deadlines: All expense reports must be processed by June 19 to close out the fiscal year (this includes Faculty Travel and ASC). My advice is to aim for the week prior if possible, in case you need to submit an ITS WebHelp job ticket. If you received a cash advance, those need to be resolved by June 5 (see Oracle directions for how to do that). If you turn in your faculty travel expense and receipts too late, they may have to get charged to the next fiscal year’s faculty travel. This means that you will have fewer funds available in the cycle that starts on July 1 because you will have already pulled from them. If your travel is between June 10 and 30, and you haven’t already talked to Lisa about this, please do so ASAP.

ASC funding reports: If you received an ASC grant for the current fiscal year (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026), please remember to complete the Funding Report submission form by June 30. This form and further details are available on the ASC Grant Applications page. Please contact ASC Chair Teresa Herrera (thererra@allegheny.edu) or Lisa Whitenack (lwhitena@allegheny.edu) with any questions. Please note that if you do not turn in this report, you are not eligible for ASC funds in future award cycles until we’ve received your report. Note that this form is separate from the sabbatical/pre-tenure leave report.

Sabbatical/Pre-Tenure Leave Reports: If you had a sabbatical or pre-tenure leave during the 2025/26 academic year, please remember to submit your leave report using the form on this page. For fall one-semester leaves, reports were due by March 31. For spring one-semester leaves and two-semester (fall/spring) leaves, reports are due by October 31. Questions can be directed to Lisa (lwhitena@allegheny.edu).

Allegheny Awesome: The last Allegheny Awesome of this academic year comes courtesy of Sam Shepard in Chemistry, nominated by Margaret Nelson in Biology. Sam writes:

“My Introductory Chemistry class has a more traditional lecture on Mondays and Wednesdays and then the week is capped off with “Problem Solving Fridays.” This gives my students the opportunity to practice the sort of multi-step problem solving that is ubiquitous in chemistry (write the formula of this molecule, then balance the reaction, then calculate moles of product…). The challenge with this style of problem is that I rarely have time to do more than one worked example of multi-step problem solving in a class. By spreading out the students among several practice problems, I can give them more practice in a fraction of the time it would take if we did each exercise as a class sequentially.

“There’s no shortage of great chalkboard space in Carr 122, so I’ll put a different multi-part exercise on each chalkboard before class begins and print them out on a worksheet. Once class begins, I’ll have each student draw from a small deck of cards. Students who draw the Ace group up for exercise 1, students who draw a Two go to the chalkboard for exercise 2 and so on. Once they’ve worked through their problems, I’ll send students back to their seats and can move through the answers relatively quickly, since the solutions are already on the board. In some instances, I’ve even been able to do a “gallery walk” style of problem-solving. Everyone does part A of their assigned problem and then I have each group move to the right and do part B of their neighbor’s exercise, then move over again for part C and so on. This builds in some peer review and ensures that no student gets stuck with too easy or hard a problem. Getting students working at the board helps them communicate with one another and makes it easier for me to catch misconceptions and correct them. I want to give credit here, spreading out students across different problems was adapted from something I observed in Shaun Murphree’s class, and Matt Betush uses playing cards as a tool for random group assignment. This is just my spin on it. Student feedback on Problem Solving Friday has been very complimentary, though I will share the caveat that I need to move a little more rapidly through content on Monday and Wednesday in order to leave time for this activity each Friday. One advantage for this strategy is that I can customize group sizes and exercises to the class size for the day on the fly (e.g. if several students are ill).”

If you have a cool pedagogical thing that you’re doing and would like to share, please email me! If you’ve seen a colleague doing something awesome in the classroom or while advising that people should know about, please let me know! If you’ve discovered the key to staying productive in your scholarship while juggling all of the things, send me an email! From there, I will follow up with folks and work with them to write a paragraph or two for a future Faculty Development Digest.

Updates from the Library

Summer Research Workshops: The Library and CCPD are partnering with URSCA to support summer research!  We are offering workshops focusing specifically on ways to present and talk about research, including: using digital tools, poster design techniques and skills to boost talking about and leveraging research in a job interview and professionally.  Workshops are open to all students and faculty. All sessions are on dates and times listed in the CREATE Lab. Here are slides explaining the content covered in each workshop (see attachment).

Wanted: Historical Course Syllabi: Merrick Archives and Special Collections is seeking assistance from Allegheny faculty in preserving our academic history. We are especially interested in receiving copies of course syllabi for any Allegheny courses taught prior to 2010, as materials from earlier years are limited in our current holdings. Both print or electronic copies are accepted. Please contact us at merrick@allegheny.edu.

Resource Showcase: ProQuest Central: A database for virtually all topics, ProQuest Central provides access to over 15,000 full-text scholarly journals, more than 4,600 magazines and trade journals, spanning over 160 subject areas. It also includes over 1,600 active full-text news sources, 450,000+ dissertations, and 460,000+ market/industry reports. Covers diverse fields, including social sciences, education, criminal justice, linguistics, health, and science & technology. Click here to access.

From Student Success

Send kudos to your students!: We wanted to remind you about the new Kudos feature that allows you to send messages of congratulation and affirmation to students for their work. We announced this on March 3 in an e-mail titled “Making it Easier to Submit Academic Alerts.” Click on the academic alerts link in Self-Service and select the “Your Classes’ or “Advising “Tabs and you will see a “Kudos” button next to each student name. Professor Aisha Yusuf of the Business and Economics Department has submitted over 40 kudos messages to students since we unveiled the new tool. She writes, “the Kudos alert feature on Self Service quickly became one of my favorite tools this semester. I used it to recognize students for various reasons, whether for improved test scores, insightful class discussions, or simply being kind and inclusive with their peers. Feeling seen and appreciated made a real difference in students’ self-confidence and class participation.”

Improving student success with aPlus+ Attendance: To give faculty more options in Canvas to deal with attendance and to help identify at-risk students earlier, we would like to remind you about the new Canvas tool: aPlus+ Attendance. Class attendance is fundamental to student success in Allegheny courses, and we know from academic alerts over the past few years that students not attending class is a problem. This is a national issue, not just Allegheny-specific, but we aim to provide tools to faculty to help us help students be accountable.

Why switch? The native Canvas tool is binary (Present/Absent). The new aPlus+ tool offers:

• Nuance: Mark students as Late, Sick, or Excused.
• Efficiency: Let students check themselves in via a code.
• Integration: Automatically syncs class sessions to the Canvas Calendar.

Vetting via governance: the Academic Support Committee, alongside Academic Success, and the Library’s Canvas Team, reviewed and vetted this tool.

Is this required? NO. While the tool will appear in your course menu, you are free to ignore it or continue using your current methods.

Is this replacing the current Attendance tool? NO. Both tools will appear in your course menu.

How to try it: Simply click the aPlus+ Attendance link in your course menu and select “Authorize.” Note: Class sessions will automatically populate in your Canvas Calendar. You can manage this via the “Calendars” menu.

Support:

• Guides: Vendor’s instructor guide . The Allegheny Canvas team is working with APlus+ to develop guides and videos tailored for Allegheny College.
• Feedback: Report issues using the aPlus+ tab on the Academic Alert and aPlus Issues Tracking sheet

Help: Contact Doug Anderson or Betsy Garloch at canvasteam@allegheny.edu

Canvas and Student Engagement: Student Success is in the process of looking at tools that will integrate with Canvas to better understand student engagement with course activities. Current tools are being selected. More information to come.

From the Center for Career and Professional Development

CCPD resources website: The CCPD has a newly revised resources site, including a page just for faculty and staff, with ideas for incorporating career content in your fall classes. Also available via GatorHub (Student Resources –> Career Planning).

Blue & Gold Weekend: Mark your calendars for Blue & Gold Weekend, Sept. 17 – 20. Let us know (using these links) if you would like to invite alumni speakers to your classrooms for Blue & Gold and/or participate in the (new this year!) Etiquette Networking Luncheon, where students, faculty, staff, and alumni will enjoy a meal and practice networking skills.

Readings, Slides, and Guides

Why students ignore feedback and how to fix it: This article by Julia Colella in Faculty Focus talks about 5 reasons feedback may be ignored, and what you can do to potentially change that. Chances are you’re already doing at least some of these things, but it’s always good to review. As you’re planning for next semester, for example, think about how you’ll make time for conversations about feedback during class time. (Note: you may need to login to the website to read it, and accounts are free).

Teaching in a Polarized Time: Course Design for Constructive Dialogue: The Council of Independent Colleges ran a one-hour webinar in April that was a panel discussion on how various faculty members designed their courses around discourse and conversation between students with different ideologies. You can watch a recording here.

Understand, unsure, lost traffic signals: In Science, Yunteng He describes a simple method for getting immediate feedback from students in terms of whether they understand material or not – red, yellow, and green index cards, mimicking traffic signals. Read about it here. (Thanks to Margaret for the link!)

COPE for assisting struggling students: This article in Faculty Focus briefly discusses why students might be struggling that have nothing to do with their abilities, then outlines the COPE method for proactively addressing potential issues in manageable steps for the students. In particular, it mentions employing this method on the first day to hand students a tool they can use.(Note: you may need to login to the website to read it, and accounts are free)

Making learning accessible to all: This collection of articles about all aspects of accessibility has some great stuff in it! Articles cover accessibility as inclusivity and belonging, classroom technology, rethinking learning spaces beyond the classroom (e.g. lab, fieldwork), the role of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), neurodiversity-friendly teaching, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, hearing and visual challenges, and assessment.

College humanities to career: One last article from Faculty Focus – this one is specifically about faculty translating their humanities education into the language of careers.

Upcoming Opportunities

Every Summer Needs a Plan: The NCFDD is running a live webinar on May 14, where you will create a realistic strategy for balancing writing, rest, and professional priorities. Register here.

Teaching Professor Conference: Faculty Focus will be running its annual Teaching Professor Conference from June 5-7 in St. Louis. You can learn more about this conference here.

Fulbright-IMC Krems Visiting Professor Award: This distinguished award offers scholars from the United States the opportunity to engage in both teaching and research at IMC Krems University of Applied Sciences, an internationally oriented higher education institution in Austria. The program is designed to promote academic exchange, strengthen international collaboration, and further enhance the long-standing ties between Austria and the United States. For further information regarding the award, eligibility requirements, and the application process, please refer to the Fulbright Austria website: Fulbright-IMC Krems Visiting Professor.  Applications are due on September 15, 2026.