The Faculty Development Digest highlights events and resources that may be of interest to faculty and other educators on campus. The Digest will be posted on the Faculty Resources site periodically throughout the year. If you have an item that you would like to suggest for inclusion in a future issue, please send the details to Director of Faculty Development Lisa Whitenack at lwhitena@allegheny.edu. To access previous issues, use the links in the Recent Posts box or on this page.
From the Director of Faculty Development:
Faculty Development office hours: Do you need help with your travel reimbursement? Do you want to talk about an idea or issue related to faculty development? Or perhaps you just never knew there were offices behind the Collaboratory and want to say hi? Lisa Whitenack will be holding office hours in Pelletier 308B on Mondays from 1:30-5 pm and Thursdays from 8-9 am & 11 am-12 pm. No appointment is necessary!
Help us design the Center: The Center for Faculty Research and Teaching Excellence is envisioned as the campus hub for faculty and staff development, supporting transformational teaching and research and enhancing the use of educational technology. Faculty and staff, we invite you to complete this survey to let us know what you would like to see in the Center and how you might want to contribute to the Center. Thank you for your input!
Updates from the Library
New database: The library would like to announce the availability of Mergent Market Atlas, a new online resource database. Market Atlas will continue to offer the modules and reports formerly found in Mergent Online, but with a cleaner interface that is easier to navigate. You can still authenticate into Market Atlas with your Allegheny login. The Help pages found in Market Atlas are a great resource for learning all the new features. More information and tutorials will be forthcoming as Mergent makes them available.
New book in the Faculty Development Collection: This month, Tressa Snyder, Dean of the Library, is showcasing Collabor(h)ate: How to build incredible collaborative relationships at work (even if you’d rather work alone), by Deb Meshak, PhD. Although collaboration is celebrated in organizations of all shapes and sizes, it’s not always obvious how to cultivate a culture of collaboration. This is especially true when the existing culture is at odds with the goals and aspirations of the institution. Meshak discusses creative ways to form collaborative relationships and partnerships focusing on communication and goals. This book is located on the main floor of the library in the Faculty Development collection, call number: 650.1 M37c
Academic Advising
There are a number of resources available to help you with advising students, whether you are advising undeclared students or students who have already declared. One of your first stops should be the Advising Handbook as you work with students. It is updated each year and is a wonderful resource!
Getting Ready for the 2024 Presidential Election
Based on the last two presidential elections, faculty should start thinking about how they want to handle both the weeks leading up to the election and the weeks following the election. Some faculty engage with world events and politics in their courses and may feel ready to handle whatever happens. Other faculty may teach courses that do not typically address these topics; however, students may bring their feelings and experiences involving the election or other world events into your classroom.
While we are working on some things to help you navigate the next few months, there are a few resources you can check out now:
- The GLCA Consortium for Teaching and Learning has put together a large collection of resources for navigating difficult discussions. These include general guides to more specific topics.
- Some students may experience trauma from the events related to the presidential election. Trauma can seriously impact a student’s ability to learn and their well-being. We also know that trauma can be caused by many other experiences, including the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, and the general political climate. We can engage in trauma-informed pedagogy
- Here is a guide from Barnard College that walks through trauma and principles of trauma-informed pedagogy, and provides some resources (long-ish read)
- Here are two super-short reads: a list of specific behaviors that help create trauma-informed classrooms and an instructor checklist for trauma-informed classrooms
For Tenured Faculty
- If you’re thinking about applying for promotion to full Professor or nominating someone for full Professor soon, “Advice on Moving from Associate Professor to Full Professor” will be of interest.
- If you are evaluating a colleague in your department/program or are on a tenure committee, please take the time to review the relevant policies and procedures.
Readings, Slides, and Guides
Teaching with AI: The https://lascollab.parami.edu.mm/guides/ has a series of guides on aspects of teaching under a liberal arts model, including guides for scaffolding academic writing, working/dealing with AI, and ecomedia literacy.
More teaching with AI: Here are the slides from the GLCA Consortium for Teaching and Learning (CTL)’s August 28 presentation on AI, No Robot Left Behind: AI and Our Fall Classes, hosted by Lew Ludwig and featuring Alexis Hart, Byron Rich, and Caitlyn Deeter (Rollins College). Lew offers a useful compendium of other AI guides and resources here.
Student resilience: Building a Learning Sanctuary: Fostering Resilience in Our Students, Part 1 (Mays Imad, The Teaching Professor, August 26, 2024): Imad sees a “learning sanctuary” as an intentional response to the global challenges that affect student well-being, hoping to transform anxiety and uncertainty into empowerment and wisdom.
Student mental health: Slides and resources from the CTL’s August 14 workshop on Strategies to Support Student Mental Health in the Classroom led by Jan Miyake and Angie Roles (both at Oberlin) can be found here.
Upcoming Opportunities
Another World is Possible: A Global Racial and Social Justice Summit: Call for Presenters: Please join the Great Lakes Colleges Association and Global Liberal Arts Alliance on February 13-16, 2025, for an in-person Global Racial and Social Justice summit at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The conference is being sponsored by the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom at Antioch College. Further information can be found here.