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:
I hope that everyone had a restorative and restful winter break and has been keeping warm!
Faculty Development office hours: The Pelletier 308 suite will continue to be under construction as work continues to make the Center space. Lisa is now back to being in her Steffee B105 office full-time until the Pelletier construction is complete (projected March 2025). Faculty Development office hours for the spring semester are: Monday 2-4 pm & Friday 9:30-11:30 am.
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.
From the Office of Inclusive Excellence
Free Virtual Workshop for those interested in leading a Sustained Dialogue Group: Interested in facilitating fun and engaging conversations in your club, department, or organization?The next virtual full training in the Sustained Dialogue process for gathering groups is available to all members of the campus community beginning February 13th, 2025, every Thursday through April 24, 2025. Each session is 90 minutes and will build on skills developed the previous week. Sessions start at 3:00pm and are open to all who want to enhance their skills for tough conversations. Future SD group leaders, please sign up with a potential co-facilitator! Please contact Anne Butcher in the Office of Inclusive Excellence at abutcher@allegheny.edu to get registered.
“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. 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 12:30pm-1:20pm 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
“AI in Higher Education” Panel Discussion, Thursday, Jan. 30: Please join us from 6-7pm in Pelletier 311 for a discussion focusing on when it is and is not safe to use AI in the classroom, whether by students or faculty. Our panel consists of:
- Janyl Jumadinova, Chair, Department of Computer and Information Science
- Alexis Hart, Professor of English and Director of Writing
- Kalé Haywood, Chair, History and Philosophy Department
- NealyClare Wheat, Honor Committee Chair
Snacks and drinks are provided! Please RSVP here by January 27, 2025 to help us plan for food. However, you can attend without RSVPing. This programming is a collaboration with the Center for Faculty Research & Teaching Excellence, the Director of Faculty Development, and the Dean of the Library.
Librarians Want to Collaborate with Faculty: Remember, Librarians are research, instructional design and educational technology partners. Do not hesitate to contact the helpful staff of Pelletier Library for collaboration and support needs. We look forward to continuing to foster Allegheny’s commitment to research, scholarship, and the liberal arts with faculty, now and into the future.
Readings, Slides, and Guides
Career education and the “hidden job market”: Scott Carlson in The Chronicle writes about the “hidden job market” that many of our students and general workforce are not necessarily aware of. A great example can be found in our local manufacturing community; many of those jobs are not on the manufacturing floor, but can include things like marketing, design, risk management, technical writing, and accounting. The article gives several examples and may be useful for thinking outside of the box for careers for the students in your program.
College students and media literacy: This article by Colleen Flaherty in Inside Higher Ed discusses a survey on media literacy taken by undergraduates that not only has information where/how they get their news and how critically they’re thinking about it, but also their suggestions for what colleges can do to help them improve their media literacy.
Understanding the effects of K-12 education on Gen Z: This piece by Beckie Supiano in The Chronicle take a solid look at how K-12 education (and US & world events that affected it) have influenced the habits and behaviors of our Gen Z college students. Note that there is some blaming and deficit framing in this article which I am not a fan of, but what I like about this article is that it shows the complex interactions that different events and expectations have had on our students.
Making room for your own writing: James Lang, who has written several books on academic writing, makes the argument for having writing rituals to get you into the writing groove faster. Full disclosure – I am a fan of this argument, and mine entails coffee/tea, instrumental music, and the same day each week.
Upcoming Opportunities
Upcoming workshops at Allegheny: The HHMI Inclusive Excellence team will be running the workshop “Shifting from a deficit to an anti-deficit mindset in the classroom”. There will be two offerings: Feb. 20, 4:30-5:30 pm & Feb. 21, 12:20-1:20 pm, both in Pelletier. Snacks will be provided on 2/20, and lunch will be provided on 2/21. RSVP here by Feb. 13. Questions can be directed to Lisa Whitenack, Director of Faculty Development (lwhitena@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
Propose a presentation at https://forms.gle/aU8u6A1G4s1kbdxu6. Deadline to submit is Friday, March 15. Presenters will be notified of their acceptance status by March 29.