Faculty Resources

From the Director of Faculty Development:

Big News!! If you attended the official ribbon-cutting for CREATE in October, you might have heard a few references to support for publishing faculty research, scholarship, and creative activities. The CREATE Faculty Publishing Award is now live! 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).

MORE Big News!!! This one has been a year in the making, and I am just so dang excited to tell you about this! If you have been looking ahead to May’s calendar, you may have noticed that the Spring Educator Resource Institute (ERI) is a day earlier than it usually is – mark your calendars for Monday, May 11. This is because we will be welcoming Dr. James Lang to Allegheny (in person!) to run two workshops during the morning sessions of the ERI. Some of you may be familiar with his work already. He is the author of Small Teaching and several other books on pedagogy. His most recent book is Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience. At the ERI, Dr. Lang will run a workshop based on his most recent book, as well as one based on Small Teaching that incorporates discussion about AI. I cannot speak highly enough about the Write Like You Teach workshop; I took it at a conference last November, and it inspired me to write a popular-press book based on my LS 105 course (book in progress!).

RSE week is 1 month away! Please do not forget that Reports of Student Experience (RSEs) are to be completed by students during the week of December 1. Even though students complete them electronically, please set aside time during class for students to complete these. If you are new to RSEs or just need a refresher, please refer to this page for more information.

Spring 2026 Book Club: I’m working on finalizing details for this, but please look for an announcement in next week’s faculty meeting agenda.

Take a break: We’ve got about a month to go this semester! Need a few moments to step away from all of the things? Check out this live cam of puppies or this one of kittens. Looking for something outside? I spent a few minutes this morning watching this live cam from a watering hole in Likipia County, Kenya, and got to watch a giraffe and some sort of other small hoofed mammal.

Allegheny Awesome: Shannan Mattiace, Professor of Political Science and International Studies, shares a new alternative to essays that she is implementing in her Latin American Politics (POLSC 235) this fall. She writes, “I really took Meghan O’Rourke’s words in the NYTimes this summer that the college essay is dead. In lieu of the essay, I asked students to do research and craft an argument on a topic in Brazilian politics (see assignment here). On the day the assignment was due, all students submitted a list of Works Cited to Canvas. They then came to my office to present their argument in 2-3 minutes, followed by 15 or so minutes of questions from me and responses from them. The conversations were really illuminating, in my view, because I got to ask students why they made certain choices regarding their argument and their sources. I often have so many questions about their essays that remain unanswered (and unasked oftentimes as well). I found that I understood my students’ thinking much more in this intimate oral exam setting than in the written essay. Students seemed to come alive when talking about their research, often sharing specific quotes and insights that they seemed genuinely interested in and excited to share with me.” Thanks for sharing this, Shannan!

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

Data Bites:  Please join us for “CREATE Faculty Publishing Award Funding” on Friday, November 7, 12:20-1:20 pm in the CREATE lab, with a FULL LUNCH! Fill out this form to RSVP. This session will provide updates on the new CREATE Faculty Publishing Award process and guidelines. We will be showcasing all publishing opportunities currently available to Allegheny Faculty.

Merrick Archives Veteran’s Day Showcase:  Join us in the Pelletier Library atrium on Tuesday, November 11th, 4:00-5:00pm, for a Veteran’s Day Civil War Flag Showcase. Archives and Special Collections Librarian, Chris Anderson, will give a talk on the Allegheny College student regiment that fought for the Union during the Civil War. The original 1861 regiment flag will be on display and a selection of Allegheny College-related Civil War artifacts and original letters by soldiers will be showcased in the Merrick Archives reading room. In addition, Allegheny student Z Leaf will showcase several items from his personal collection of military memorabilia.

Updates to DSpace Submission Process: The process for submitting Senior Projects has been updated.  Students will no longer fill out two forms, the process has been streamlined to allow students to complete one form. The following slide deck explains to faculty the changes that will be implemented by late November. Here is the slide deck that explains the process to students. Please share the student instructions with students that you are working with.  Also, continue to instruct students to visit the library’s Senior Projects Submission site for the latest instructions and guidelines. Feel free to contact Brian Kern (ext. 3792; bkern@allegheny.edu) if you have questions or concerns. We are excited to provide a more streamlined and user-friendly process.

Canvas Help: Instructional Design Librarian Betsy Garloch will have more Canvas Conversation drop-in sessions this month: Mon. November 10 from 9-9:30am and Tues. Nov. 18 from 3-4pm in CREATE.

From Student Success

Viewing All Advisee Information: Every advisor has access to advisee information at-a-glance via the Informer report Comprehensive Advisee Information w/ Midterm Grade. To access this report:

1. Go to https://informer5.allegheny.edu/ and log in with your Allegheny username and password. 
2. Search for the report by typing part of the name in the Search box and then click on the report name to open it.
3. In the pop-up box, enter the current term (25/FA) and the future term (26/SP) and click Run. This should generate a list of all of your students. If you click on the title at the top of a column, the results will be sorted by that column.

Using this report, you can see the following kinds of information for your advisees:

• Students’ registration letters (Column “Letter Group”)
• Students’ midterm grades (Column “Current Courses Midterm Grade”)
• Students’ final grades (Column “Current Courses STC Grade”)
• Number of credits registered for in the next term (Column “Future Term Credits”)
• Total number of credits transferred in from credit by examination (AP, IB, etc) or from other colleges (Column “Completed Transfer Credit”).

For a general overview of how Informer works, check out this summary created by ITS.

Transfer Credit and Advising: As noted above, advisors can view advisee transfer credit totals in one place using the Informer report Comprehensive Advisee Information w/ Midterm Grade. This total includes credit by examination (AP, IB, etc) and credit from other colleges, and is visible in the Completed Transfer Credit column. If one of your students has a large number of transfer credits, this may affect their course plans in two key ways:

• Credit Requirement: Transfer credits may count toward the 128-credit graduation requirement, reducing the number of Allegheny credits a student needs.
• Other Degree Requirements: Transfer credits may count towards major, minor, and distribution requirements,  which could impact course planning and timeline discussions.

As a reminder, general guidelines for advising students regarding their financial aid in their senior year are available on this page.

From the Office of Inclusive Excellence

Upcoming lecture: Monday, November 10th at 5pm, Dr. Joe-Joe McManus will be speaking in Tippie on his book “A Brother’s Insight.” There will be a reception afterwards and the opportunity to meet Dr. McManus and grab a copy of his book. This event is part of the Stackpole Hall Foundation. Books will be provided by the Office of Student and Community Development. Here is a flyer with more information.

Google Meet Update

Waiting Rooms: Waiting rooms, similar to the waiting room feature in Zoom, have now been updated to Google Meet. You can read more about how this works here.

From Global Education

Teach in Rome: Allegheny’s sponsored program, John Cabot University (JCU), is inviting applications for visiting professor positions for Summer 2026. The course stipend of $5,200 is intended to cover travel and accommodation in Rome. Interested faculty should email their CV and resume to summerteaching@johncabot.edu. Applications will be considered on a first-come, first-served basis, and only candidates who fit course needs will be contacted. Questions may be directed to Dean Stefano Arnone (sarnone@johncabot.edu) or VP of Academics Mary Merva (mmerva@johncabot.edu). More details can be found on this flyer.

Readings, Slides, and Guides

Parking lot & post-it notes: This article by J. Muthoni Mwangi in Faculty Focus describes how to use the idea of a “parking lot” for questions shifted their classroom from low to high participation.

The case for slow teaching: Pamela Scully in The Chronicle outlines how she has moved her teaching to be “minimalist” in terms of LMS use. While I do not agree with her entire her shift personally, I think that there are some interesting things to think about in the article.

For department chairs: NCFDD has published a free “Chairs Survival Guide” that may be worth a look.

Grading group projects: Lauren Vicker & Tim Franz have an article in Inside Higher Ed called “4 Ways to Better Grade Team Projects“, which could be handy as final projects & the end of the semester nears. Note that the website for this article has some messed-up formatting, so navigating to the article will be weird.

Ungrading and assessing student learning: This article by Keegan Lannon in Inside Higher Ed wrestles with how best to assess student learning when you’re not using letter grades for assessment.

AI has joined the faculty: This article in The Chronicle is an interesting look at the variety of ways faculty are or aren’t using AI in their work, and the rationale behind it.

Upcoming Opportunities

Mellon Higher Learning – 2026 Open Call for Concepts: The Mellon Foundation has announced its 2026 Higher Learning Program Open Call for Concepts, inviting proposals from four-year, non-profit liberal arts institutions. The program “supports inquiry into issues of vital social, cultural, and historical import, encouraging projects that engage teams of scholars and/or students and have a visible, enduring impact at the institution.” The principal investigator (applicant) must be faculty in the humanities or humanistic social sciences.

This round focuses on two themes—“Unruly Intelligences” and “Normalization and Its Discontents”—with grants of $250,000–$500,000 (for up to four years). Further information on the themes can be found at the Open Call website linked above. Each institution may submit up to three applications. An initial “registration” is due by December 1, with full proposals due in February. 

To ensure appropriate coordination and support in advance of the December 1 registration deadline, interested faculty should email provost@allegheny.edu and fcr@allegheny.edu no later than November 21 to indicate their intent to apply. Please indicate on which theme your application would focus, and 1-3 sentences summarizing your idea. 

The Provost’s Office and FCR will follow up with interested faculty by November 25. Please note that the email is sufficient notification at this time; a grant endorsement form is not required for the registration. 

Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) AI Ready Program: You should have received an email from the AI Task Force outlining this program. This year-long series introduces foundational concepts of AI through topical discussions, practical examples, and guided virtual learning tailored to different campus roles. Whether you’re in academics, administration, or student support, there’s something for everyone, and we have unlimited spaces available as a perk of our membership in the cohort. If you are interested in participating, please contact Katrina Yeung (kyeung@allegheny.edu).

From the Director of Faculty Development:

We have come to the end of another semester!  This will probably be the last Faculty Development Digest until August; I know that everyone has an assortment of summer plans, and reading emails is perhaps not the priority. I will still be available for your faculty development needs over the summer months, but I will be travelling several times and may not be able to immediately answer questions via email. Some travel is for fun (family vacation to New Mexico in June!), but most trips are for scholarship or college stuff (research in Florida, conference, COACHE institute) – lucky for me, these are still mostly fun! Whatever your summer plans are, I hope that they are restorative!

Important deadline for getting reimbursed: Please remember to turn in all Faculty Travel or ASC Grant reimbursement requests to Lisa Whitenack (Box 10 or right in my mailbox in Steffee B101) by Friday, June 6, so that they can be processed before the end of the fiscal year. In particular, please submit any remaining requests before heading out of town for summer travel. Original, itemized receipts should be accompanied by a completed Travel/Entertainment Report form with an ink signature. Additional information is available on the Faculty Funding page. If you turn in your faculty travel paperwork 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 6 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, 2024 – June 30, 2025), 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 Terry Bensel (tbsensel@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.

Sabbatical/Pre-Tenure Leave Reports: If you had a sabbatical or pre-tenure leave during the 2024/25 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)

ICYMI: Spring 2025 Educator Resource Institute (ERI): The Spring 2025 ERI took place on Tuesday, May 13. If you missed it or need to go back and look at materials, they are linked in the schedule here.

Updates from the Library

Summer research students & the library: Research librarians are offering summer research support to both students and faculty. We want to partner with you! Sessions can be tailored to individuals or groups. Email researchinstruction@allegheny.edu for more information. *New to our research repertoire includes support of digital humanities, archives and special collections research and research projects. Contact us today!

Librarians are here to help faculty, too!: Faculty can set up individual meetings with librarians over the summer to get help with moving from Zoom to Meet, Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc), Canvas, faculty research, and integrating librarian sessions into classes. Please go to the Library Resources for Faculty page to schedule an appointment.

Open access publishing opportunities: You can find information about open access publishing opportunities that Allegheny has with various publishers and journals here. You can also find the slide deck associated with the presentation that Tressa Snyder and Brian Kern gave here. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Brian (bkern@allegheny.edu) with questions!

From the Office of Inclusive Excellence

Sustained Dialogue: The Office of Student and Community Development is seeking anyone from the campus community interested in participating in moderator training as part of the Sustained Dialogue initiative on campus. Participants will learn to moderate conversations with others that prompt change and understanding through listening deeply to each other. Dialogue sessions occur over the space of several sessions throughout the semester.A Virtual Moderator Training Series will be offered through the Sustained Dialogue Institute beginning June 9th and concluding on July 7th. Sessions begin at 1pm and will last 4 hours. More information about the Sustained Dialogue Institute can be found here
Summer Moderator Training. If interested, please contact Anne Butcher at abutcher@allegheny.edu by June 2nd to be registered for the free training.

Readings, Slides, and Guides – stock up for summer!

Using AI in the classroom: Attitudes among faculty range from embracing GenAI fully to prohibiting it completely, and everything in between. While we will be providing plenty of faculty development opportunities around AI in the next academic year, you may be interested in this article by Lisa Delgado Brown in Faculty Focus. In the article, she outlines several potential strategies for incorporating AI into your classroom, including how to teach students about ethical considerations. (Note that if you can’t access the article, you can sign up for a free subscription to see it)

More AI in the classroom: The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University, just down I-79 from us, has established the GAITER Initiative. No, they’re not going to steal Chompers as their mascot. GAITER stands for “Generative AI Teaching As Research.” Included in this initiative are GAITER Fellows, faculty who are doing pedagogical research projects on AI in the classroom. You can read all about their projects and data-driven conclusions here. Projects include studies such as “Does student use of generative AI while completing formal writing assignments impact students’ writing performance?” and “To what extent does student use of generative AI impact the rate of change in students’ abilities to critically read and analyze academic papers?”

Solve a teaching problem: I just today learned that Eberly Center also has a “Solve a Teaching Problem” website – click on a problem that you’re having, and it’ll walk you through potential reasons for the problem and strategies to solve the problem. Folks from the Eberly Center say that some of these are a little out of date, and one of their big summer projects is updating this website. However, it’s still pretty useful!

Creating inclusive learning environments for international students: This short guide, written by Dr. Thilagha Jagaiah (who was an international student herself), contains five strategies for creating a more welcoming classroom for international students.

How to mentor anyone in academia: No matter your career stage, part of being a faculty member is mentoring. Yes, we are all (hopefully) mentoring students, but we are also mentoring other faculty too. This interview, published in Inside Higher Ed, talks through some of the main points in Maria Lamonaca Wisdom’s book, How to Mentor Anyone in Academia. This book will be coming to the faculty development collection in Pelletier in the coming months, and faculty institutional mentors for the next academic year will be receiving a copy as well.

Why aren’t students reading? You can either watch this three-minute video or read the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. And yes, there is some irony in watching a video instead of reading the article about not reading.

Co-creating classroom rules: It may seem too early to be thinking about the fall semester, but it’s not! Summer can be a great time for having some breathing room to truly think about potential changes to future courses. One change folks may be considering making is co-creating ground rules or classroom norms with their students. This article in Faculty Focus walks through some ways to do that and why it may be a great idea for your classroom.

Upcoming Opportunities

Duquesne University National Research Scholars Program: The Carl G. Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law at Duquesne University invites scholars and researchers in the United States to apply for the Grefenstette National Research Scholars program for Academic Year 2025-2026. The National Research Scholars program is a small community of scholars from all backgrounds and traditions who come together monthly and discuss their research on the intersections of technology, society, and faith, broadly construed.  Areas of study include but are not limited to critical AI/critical technology studies, responsible AI studies, ethics, religious studies, sociology of religion, intersectional approaches to technology and society, and theology. Applications are due May 30. You can read more about the program here.

Free online professional development course on research methodology: The Center for Learning and Teaching at Forman Christian College University, Lahore, is excited to offer a FREE online professional development course on Research Methodology 2025 – based on the Researcher Development Framework (RDF).  Here is the information (emojis came with the message, not from Lisa):

  June 11 – July 8, 2025         |   23 webinars on different days and times

  Online via Zoom                   |   Registration link (Zoom link will be shared once you register)

  Course Schedule                |  Schedule carries expert(s) & session(s) info

  Who can benefit:                 |   Scholars, postgraduate students, refresh/strengthen research skills

  Course benefits                   |   Online Access to Recordings, Slides, Resources

  Digital Participation Certificates ** for participants who attend full sessions

Fullbright-IMC Krems: The application period for the prestigious Fulbright-IMC Krems Visiting Professor Award is now open. This award offers a unique opportunity for scholars to engage in a combination of teaching and research at IMC Krems, a renowned internationally oriented University of Applied Sciences in Austria. The program aims to foster international collaboration and academic exchange and strengthening ties between the United States and Austria. We highly encourage eligible candidates to apply and take advantage of this exceptional opportunity. IMC Krems is known for its practice-oriented education, international focus, and close collaboration with industry partners. Located in the picturesque town of Krems, the university offers a vibrant academic environment with state-of-the-art facilities and a strong emphasis on student satisfaction and employability. With a diverse range of degree programs in business, health, and science & technology, IMC Krems is committed to developing the talents of its students and preparing them for successful careers. For more details about the Fulbright-IMC Krems Visiting Professor Award and the application process, please visit Fulbright Austria.

From the Director of Faculty Development:

Spring 2025 Educator Resource Institute (ERI): The Spring 2025 ERI will take place on Tuesday, May 13 in Pelletier. You can find a schedule with workshop descriptions here. Please RSVP here by Thursday, May 8 so that we can plan for food, etc. Note that you are free to attend as many of these sessions as you like, but we hope to see you at all of them! Most sessions will be taking place in the new CREATE Lab (formerly the Collaboratory) – come take a sneak peek at the new CREATE space!

We also could use some of your help in planning these workshops, even if you are unable to attend sessions:

• If you already use alternative grading strategies (and Lisa hasn’t already reached out to you), please fill out this 6-question survey.
• The RSVP form also has a field for questions about alternative grading that you may have.

RSE week is coming!: This is a friendly reminder that RSEs are being administered the week of April 21. Please allow class time during that week for your students to complete their feedback.

COACHE: From the COACHE team, thank you to everyone who took the survey and/or encouraged others to do so. Our final response rate was 83.6%!! High fives to everyone!

Brain break: In “The Waste Land”, T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruelest month”. While he was not referring to the rhythm of the academic year, the sentiment applies. The mad dash to the end of the semester can be a lot. Please make sure that you’re taking care of yourself and taking breaks in this final leg of the semester (just like when we tell our students to take study breaks!). One of the things that I like to do when I feel chained to my desk, but can’t get out into nature, is to keep a live cam going in the background so that I can stop and watch the fishes for a while. Coral City in Miami is one of my frequent ones, as is the live stream from the Okeanos Explorer which will be at sea from April 11 – May 2. Coral City was coincidentally featured on NPR on April 14! If fishes aren’t your thing, there are oodles of live cams at explore.org, including birds, general landscapes, bears, and more.

Allegheny Awesome: 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

Student appointments with the Research librarians: The Research librarians at Pelletier encourage faculty to recommend that their students make an appointment with a librarian for one-on-one assistance with papers, presentations, and reports. Appointments are available throughout the week, with 48 hours notice, either in person or via Google Meet. Librarians can assist with honing search strategies, focusing research, identifying authoritative articles and books, tracking citations, using correct citation styles, and more. The library also offers research assistance at the Research Desk, facing the entrance to the library. Librarians and trained students provide on-the-spot research help from 3-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Summer research students & the library: Research librarians are offering summer research support to both students and faculty. We want to partner with you! Sessions can be tailored to individuals or groups. Email researchinstruction@allegheny.edu for more information. *New to our research repertoire includes support of digital humanities, archives and special collections research and research projects. Contact us today!

Meeting with departments: The Dean of the Library is meeting with interested departments to discuss research and resource needs and to showcase department and program-specific resources. If your department would like to move to the top of the list, please contact Tressa Snyder, as soon as possible at tsnyder@allegheny.edu.

Upcoming library events:

-Lafayette at Allegheny College, a Merrick Archives Exhibit, April 11 to May 2, 2025   

In 1825, French General Marquis de Lafayette was on a national tour of the United States. On June 2, 1825, Lafayette’s entourage stopped in Meadville and the General gave a speech from the steps of Bentley Hall.

From April 11 to May 2, the exhibit “Lafayette at Allegheny College” will be displayed at the Merrick Archives on the 3rd floor of Pelletier Library. The exhibit showcases several original artifacts, including the recently rediscovered 1825 Allegheny College Guest Book, signed by Lafayette, his son, and several of his French companions. The exhibit also features original artifacts related to Lafayette’s brief stay in Meadville, on loan from the Crawford County Historical Society, the Hagen History Center in Erie, and Allegheny Alumnus Bill Owen.

-Out of the Vault, April 22, 2025, 4:00 PM

On Tuesday, April 22, at 4:00pm, the Merrick Archives will host the final Out of the Vault program for the spring semester. Allegheny Archivist Chris Anderson will discuss General Lafayette’s stop at Allegheny College and also showcase original artifacts from the exhibit. The Allegheny College and Meadville communities are invited to attend the event to be held on the 3rd floor of the Pelletier Library.

Readings, Slides, and Guides

Resources for higher education news & issues: While many of us have particular go-to sources that keep us apprised of the latest topics and news related to our specific disciplines, there are some great resources for news and information on higher ed in general, pedagogy, and scholarship. Many of these resources are either free or freely available with an Allegheny email. Here is a list of Whitenack’s go-to sources for staying updated on higher education news and for bringing things to you in this digest. If you have suggestions for some that I may have missed, please let me know!

Self-archiving your research and teaching materials: There are several reasons that folks may have for backing up your professional materials in multiple places. During my Ph.D., I backed up all of my data on 3 copies of CDs – one for the lab, one for home, and one that mailed to my parents to put in their safe deposit box – because what if I lost one of those CDs?! An Allegheny faculty member sent me this Bluesky thread about how to go about self-archiving your electronic stuff (which I printed to a PDF in case you’re not on Bluesky). Note that the thread is focused on potential censorship in the current political climate, but the advice is solid regardless of your reason for self-archiving.

Reflecting on the semester: While it’s tempting to close up your course notes and grade book and sail into the summer, it’s worth taking time to reflect on your courses while the experience is fresh in your brain. This guide from the City University of New York talks about pausing your sprint into summer to close out the semester with reflection, record-keeping, and thinking about how these connect to your professional development.

Upcoming Opportunities

GLCA teaching & learning workshop – AI in Action: Improve, Create, Integrate, a Hands-on Workshop: April 16, 12-1 pm Eastern. As educators, finding the time to explore the practical applications of AI in our teaching can be challenging. This hands-on workinar, designed specifically for those with minimal AI experience, will guide you through effective ways to use AI to improve your existing assignments, create innovative new ones, and seamlessly integrate generative AI into your busy academic life. We will primarily use ChatGPT, the platform most used by students. This session will be highly interactive, featuring group discussions and hands-on activities, so it will not be recorded. Throughout the workshop, we will actively use ChatGPT to demonstrate its capabilities and explore its applications in your teaching. To fully engage with the workshop materials, we recommend that attendees create at least a base account on a generative AI platform such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini before the session. This will allow you to upload files and experiment with AI tools in real time, ensuring a more productive and immersive learning experience. By the end of this session, you will have a solid understanding of how AI operates in educational contexts and its potential implications for your teaching. You’ll leave equipped to make well-informed decisions about whether and how to incorporate AI tools into your teaching practices based on your specific educational objectives and classroom needs. Register here.

What Works in 2025? Building for the Future of Higher Education: The Center for Innovative Pedagogy at Kenyon College invites presentations on teaching and learning for a hybrid conference May 28-29, 2025.  This conference is an opportunity for faculty and academic support professionals to share their experiences innovating for the classroom. The presentation application deadline has already passed, but it may be worth checking out as an attendee! More information can be found here.

From the Director of Faculty Development:

COACHE: Great news!! As of 3/18, our response rate to the COACHE survey is 56.9%! That means that we’ve earned cookies and finals week beverages at French Creek Coffee! We will be getting cookies and punchcards for beverages to your mailboxes in the coming weeks.

This also means that we still need eligible folks to complete their surveys if y’all want a nice brunch at the last faculty meeting. You’re probably tired of hearing me say this, but if you’re eligible, please take the COACHE survey! If you’ve already taken it, thank you. Please be sure to encourage your colleagues to take the survey as well!

Don’t forget that our second open tab at GFC is on March 27!

Allegheny Awesome: Tommy Conners, Assistant Professor of World Language & Culture, has been experimenting with curricular-extracurricular collaboration in “Intro to Latinx Studies”.  On Wednesday, 2/26, students held poster presentations defining, contextualizing, and complicating keywords in the field. This directly preceded a panel that the student org Latinas on the Rise held about colorism in the Latin American diaspora. Tommy writes “It’s a curricular-extracurricular collaboration that aims to support Latinx students on campus, make space for Latinx Studies as a field, and turns a midterm project from a written paper into a public-facing interdisciplinary conversation.” This required close work with Latinas on the Rise, including attending meetings, navigating meeting students as both students and officers, pitching ideas and listening to their needs, and collaborating with IDEAS center leadership.

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.

Spring 2025 Educator Resource Insitute (ERI): The Spring 2025 ERI will take place on Tuesday, May 13 in Pelletier. Topics planned include a syllabus audit workshop, a workshop on alternate grading schemes (e.g. contract grading, mastery-based grading, and more), and a workshop on teaching oral communication skills. The form for RSVPing to the ERI will be coming soon.

From the Office of Inclusive Excellence

“Research for Lunch” is a once-monthly lunch event that showcases the different forms research can take. It’s geared towards students interested in summer research or in early stages of preparing to comp, but faculty are encouraged to attend! It features the projects and day-to-day research of faculty and staff from creative writing, music, sustainability, athletics, COMJ, public humanities, art, philosophy, theatre, and more. It convenes on Jan 28, Feb 19, March 27, and April 14 from 12:30 pm-1:20 pm in the Brooks Gillespie Room. Please RSVP here. Sponsored by the Office of Inclusive Excellence, the IDEAS Center, and URSCA; please direct any questions to Tommy Conners (tconners@allegheny.edu).

Updates from the Library

Data Bites: The next Data Bites session is on Friday, March 28 from 12:15-1:20 pm in Pelletier classroom 224. Tressa Snyder and Doug Anderson will talk about Copyright & Fair Use information: Want to become more copyright literate? Learn more about copyright as it applies to faculty publishing and AI, senior comps, sharing course content, and using copyrighted materials in Canvas and in the classroom. Find out about public domain, Creative Commons, and fair use in education. Snacks will be served!

Looking ahead to Fall 2025: As you start to plan your fall courses, consider inviting a librarian! Librarians will work with faculty to prepare classroom sessions designed to help students develop and reinforce both information literacy and research skills. Presentations are tailored to each course’s level and subject matter.

A sampling of possible topics:

From Student Success:

Help us get ready for first-year advising: Erin O’Day-Frye is looking for information about courses offered in Fall 2025 for the purposes of first-year course registration. Please especially send her information about special topics courses, new courses, and courses that will count for other major/minor requirements. This information will be shared with Exploratory and First Year Course Registration Advisors.

Resources for career education and Gator2Gator: Sara Pineo and colleagues have made a number of resources related to Gator2Gator, a networking platform that connects Allegheny students with alumni for career advice and professional connections. You can find the folder of resources here, which includes an info sheet for faculty and staff, as well as individual flyers/posters for majors/minors that have alumni connected to Gator2Gator.

Readings, Slides, and Guides

Updating think-pair-share: This article by Ashley Harvey offers some quick upgrades to think-pair-share.

Materials from GLCA workshop with Mays Imad: The Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) hosted a virtual workshop titled “Teaching Through Difficulty” with Dr. Mays Imad on Weds. March 12. You can find the recording here, the slides here, and a related article here.

A tool kit for open educational resources (OERs): If you’re curious about adopting OERs to reduce textbook costs for students, you may find this guide by Sami Lange handy.

Upcoming Opportunities

Mellon Periclean Faculty Leadership & Course Enhancement Grants: Funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation, these grants provide up to $4,500 to support faculty in developing or enhancing courses with civic engagement, community partnerships, and/or public scholarship. Selected faculty will (i) receive funding for course development, faculty or student stipends, research, travel, and/or community-engaged projects and (ii) join a national network of scholars dedicated to advancing civic engagement in higher education.

There are two different grants:

• Mellon Periclean Faculty Leadership (PFL) Program ($4,500)
• Periclean Course Enhancement (PCE) Grants ($1,000-$3,000)

Application Deadline: April 4, 2025 (for courses taught in Fall 2025 or Spring 2026) and October 3, 2025 (for courses taught in Spring 2026.)
 Click here to learn more and apply.

*** Interested faculty should complete the Allegheny College grant proposal endorsement form well before the deadline. Please also keep in mind that the Foundations & Corporate Relations Office will need to review all drafts of the proposal at least 2 weeks before the proposal deadline.

For questions or more information, please contact Brian Miller (bmiller2@allegheny.edu) or Tarah Williams (twilliams@allegheny.edu).

What Works in 2025? Building for the Future of Higher Education: The Center for Innovative Pedagogy at Kenyon College invites presentations on teaching and learning for a hybrid conference May 28-29, 2025.  This conference is an opportunity for faculty and academic support professionals to share their experiences innovating for the classroom. Your proposal should include an explanation of how your session would apply to the teaching of undergraduates in small colleges and universities. These can be lessons learned in larger institutions that would also apply to smaller settings. We will consider all proposals that would apply to undergraduate education at a small college or university, but we especially want to encourage proposals in these areas:

• approaches that build community and belonging in the classroom
• creative connections between different disciplines across the curriculum
• experiential opportunities and real world applications for the liberal arts

The presentation application deadline has already passed, but it may be worth checking out as an attendee!