Faculty Resources

From the Director of Faculty Development

Warm autumn beverages in CREATE: If you’re the type that craves a warm beverage when autumn hits, CREATE’s got you! We have apple cider and hot chocolate in the CREATE kitchen!

Upcoming Data Bites: We have two Data Bites coming up in October, both related to retention efforts, which will be in CREATE from 12:20-1:20pm (and snacks will be provided!):

• Oct. 23, Student-Athlete Success: This session with Chris Calliari, Assistant Dean of Student Athelete Success, will discuss a student athlete’s college experience. Chris will share his experience as a former student-athlete and what he is witnessing with our current student athletes. The session will also cover balancing academics and athletics, stress management, and self identity crisis with athletes.
• Oct. 30, When Money Blocks Momentum: Helping Students Navigate Financial Holds:
  Financial holds can create confusion, stress, and unexpected barriers for students trying to stay on track. In this session, class deans will provide advisors with a clearer understanding of what financial holds mean, how they affect students, and what support options are available. We’ll focus on practical language, common scenarios, and ways to connect students with the right resources quickly and compassionately.

Midterm grades: Midterm grades are due on Monday, Oct. 19. During the fall ERI, we had a really great discussion about how people feel midterm grades are going (example – some folks are seeing more engagement from students, some aren’t) and I kept track of questions that were raised. I will getting back to those notes soon. In the meantime, here are a few resources and ideas to help you think about how to approach this:

• Lisa wrote this memo in October 2025, and it contains a few ideas on how to determine midterm grades.
• During the fall ERI, Megan Bertholomey shared that she has been using this exercise to engage students in both the midterm grade process and an end-of-semester reflection. She uses feedback from this exercise to determine midterm grades and to initate conversations with students who need help understanding where the stand in the course. She also reported that most students are honest in this process. A couple of other folks chimed in to say they are already using this exercise as well. I hope it will help others as well, and a big thank you to Megan for sharing!
• As a possible way to engage with your advisees, a suggestion from someone was to send a general email to advisees inviting them to review their midterm grades and stop by for a chat, especially if they are concerned that their grades aren’t accurate or the grade was a surprise. (sorry, I didn’t write down who said it!)

Sabbatical/Pre-Tenure Applications: If you are planning on taking a sabbatical or pre-tenure leave during the 2027/28 academic year, you will need to submit an application. Applications are due November 1 and can be found on this page. Please note that funding to support sabbatical/pre-tenure leaves are submitted via a separate application. Questions can be directed to Teresa Herrera or Lisa Whitenack.

ASC Funding Applications: Applications for ASC funding (including funding in support of sabbatical/pre-tenure leaves) are due November 1. You can find the application and guidelines on the ASC Grant Applications page. Questions can be directed to Teresa Herrera or Lisa Whitenack.

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: I’m begging you to share the cool stuff you or a colleague does!  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

Banned Books Week: Stop by Pelletier Library this month and view our Banned Books Week display. This display is in the lobby to your left as you walk into Pelletier and contains the top 11 books that have been challenged across the United States in the year 2025. Learn more about censorship, book bans, where they take place, and who is behind challenges in the US. While you are here stop by the Library Services Desk and check out a copy of one of this year’s banned books!

CREATE Faculty Publishing Award: The CREATE Faculty Publishing Award is designed to support full-time faculty members in their pursuit of publishing artistic and scholarly works such as books, articles, monographs, collections, or other items. By providing financial assistance to cover essential publication production-related expenses (such as indexing, copyright permissions, translation costs, etc.), this grant aims to facilitate the dissemination of innovative research and creative projects across various disciplines. You can find the guidelines and links to application materials on the CREATE Faculty Publishing Award website. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and will be reviewed by the Academic Support Committee (ASC). Please contact Tressa Snyder, Dean of the Library or Lisa Whitenack, Director of Faculty Development with questions.

Changes to RefWorks: You may have seen the Canvas announcement that RefWorks, the college’s preferred citation manager, will become EndNote Fusion. Once the change goes live, users who access RefWorks will be automatically redirected to EndNote Fusion. No action is required on your part, and existing workflows will continue to work:

• Allegheny users will still be able to log into EndNote Fusion the same way they currently use with RefWorks.
• All existing accounts, references, settings, projects, folders, attachments, tags, custom citation styles, and sharing permissions will transfer automatically.
• There is no plan for any downtime during this change.
• October 6 is the target date. Allegheny’s librarians will release new support materials over the coming weeks as we become familiar with EndNote Fusion’s enhanced capabilities.

If you have any questions, please contact the Center for Research and Teaching Excellence at create@allegheny.edu.

From Financial Aid

Federal financial aid regulations regarding loan eligibility have recently changed. As a result, dropping classes after the add/drop deadline that affects a student’s enrollment status (for example, changing from full-time to part-time) could have a greater impact on a student’s financial aid eligibility than in the past. This includes intentional drops reflected as an X or W grade, as well as an FS grade resulting from a student ceasing to attend class.

If you are working with a student who is considering dropping a course or who has ceased attendance in your class, please encourage the student to contact the Financial Aid Office before making the change permanent. This will allow us to counsel the student about the potential impact on their financial aid and, when appropriate, discuss alternative options before they finalize their decision. If you have questions, please email fao@allegheny.edu.

From Global Education

From the Office of Student and Community Development

Sustained Dialogue Institute: The Office of Student and Community Development is offering free, in person moderator training with the Sustained Dialogue Institute to any member of the Allegheny Community that is interested. Training is 2 days and will take place Friday, October 23rd from 4-7pm and Saturday October 24th from 9am-12pm. Materials and meals will be provided. Here is the sign up link. The Deadline to sign up is 10/16/26.

Readings, Slides, and Guides

New book alert!: Dr. Jennifer Pusateri’s (U. Kentucky) book, A Practical Guide to Teaching Neurodivergent College Students, has arrived in CREATE and is ready for checkout.

Academic Alerts 101: The Class Deans kindly put together this guide to Academic Alerts (and Kudos!), based of their Data Bites session from earlier this semester. There’s some helpful information in here that everyone should read, including what happens after you send one.

Open-access book with TILTed examples: If you are curious about how transparent design in teaching and learning (TILT) could look like in your discipline, this new open access book could be a good resource for you. TILTed Pedagogy: A Collection of Evidence-Based Assignments to Inspire Learning in Higher Education (published by Elon University) showcases assignments (and evidence!) from several disciplines and insitutions that have emplyed TILT in their courses.

Bringing delight to the classroom: AAC&U’s Liberal Education magazine has a feature where they include short ideas contributed by the readers around a question. Earlier this year, their question was “What’s one way you instill the joy of learning in your students?”.

When a student loses a loved one: While I was browsing Liberal Education (this is a new resource for me), and I found an article about helping grieving students. This hit home for me, as not only did I lose family members while a student, but also as a professor I (like many others here) have had to navigate the loss of students and colleagues dear to students. While some of this article is focused on developing larger insitutional resources, there are some interesting things to think about for when you learn that a student is dealing with loss.

Prequestioning: This substack post by Michelle Miller summarizes a research paper on “prequestioning” (answering questions about the material you’re about to read before reading it) and its positive effects on information retention in undergraduate students.

Teaching controversial topics when information is incomplete: Ahlam Lee, in Inside Higher Ed, writes about how to navigate discussing controversial issues while the events are still unfolding.

Upcoming Opportunities

GLCA online workshop: The GLCA’s Consortium for Teaching and Learning’s next online workshop is on October 22, 12-1pm and is called “A Permission Slip to Say No: Sustainable Teaching in Unsustainable Conditions” with Lindsay Masland. Lindsay is the Executive Director for the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for Student Success and a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Appalachian State University. From the GLCA: “Over the past few years, college instructors have been surprised, confused, and occasionally outraged by the students who show up in our classrooms. Lamentations over missing skills, low attendance rates, and disappointing work quality are centerstage in many pedagogical discussions. Not surprisingly, the recommended antidote is to double down on the use of student-centered teaching. In the quest to be student-centered, though, we can end up making choices that can overwhelm us with their unsustainability. Participants will explore how centering faculty needs in pedagogical decision-making provides fertile ground for more sustainable, effective teaching practices that benefit both instructors and students.”. Register HERE for the event (and add it to your calendar, as the calendar invite won’t come until the day before).

Grant opportunity: A new grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, aligns with the community-engaged civic learning Allegheny is already invested in. Civic Education for Democratic Life (CEDLife) will fund five projects of up to $130,000 each over 12 months. The goal is to strengthen and extend existing campus-community partnerships where undergraduates and community members build civic knowledge together through humanities or interpretive social science coursework.

Those interested should plan to submit a grant proposal endorsement form to FCR at least one month before the Dec 1 deadline.

A few things to know as you consider fit:

• It’s meant to build on work you are already doing. The grant supports expanding a well-established community partnership (that is, not a new partnership or general operating costs.) Reviewers will weigh partnership history and depth, and whether your model could be adapted by other faculty and institutions.
• It has to be curricular. At least one PI must be a humanities or interpretive social science scholar, and the work has to live in coursework. Co-curricular service, volunteering, and voter engagement are out of scope.
• The first step is light. A Letter of Intent is due December 1 (one-page narrative, a team list with partnership history, and a brief budget paragraph). ACLS will invite a smaller group to submit full proposals in February.
• Community partners can be paid directly. Up to five payees, including community partners, can receive funds from ACLS without routing through your institution.
• Office hours: October 14 (2–3 pm ET) and November 6 (12–1 pm ET)–you can sign up through links in the email below.
  With only five awards nationally, this will be competitive. The strongest candidates will be programs with years of relational work behind them and a clear story about what other campuses could learn from it. If this feels like a good match, we encourage you to share this with the relevant faculty and their community partners soon.