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Facilitator: Mike Lewis, Environmental Studies

The new First Year Seminar courses will be a defining element of our new general education curriculum. And every single course will be a first-time offering this fall. The 28 faculty teaching FYS's this fall will all be confronting similar challenges as we work to make our courses as effective as possible. The goal of this FLC is to create a space for this cohort of faculty to learn from each other's experiments, to share our failures and struggles, to encourage each other, and to celebrate our successes. This will also create a structure for the dissemination of information - whether from the University Writing Center, or UARA, or ID&D, etc. Participation will be open to all faculty teaching FYS courses in the fall or spring of 2024-25. In preliminary discussions, every faculty member that I have approached was enthusiastic about participating in this FLC (though I have not reached out to all 28, only a handful thus far). Although the FLC will not start until August, I will schedule informal "drop in chats" for a few dates in the summer, as we will all be working on our syllabi prior to August. Once the semester begins, I will try to find a time that fits all of our teaching schedules. As the cohort is large, I don't imagine that the food budget will supply meals - I instead anticipate snacks and caffeine. The cohort will meet throughout the academic year.

Facilitators: Chrys Egan, Assistant Dean, Fulton School; Stephen Habay, Chair, Chemistry; Jim Fox, Chair, Education Leadership and Literacy Studies

The Department Chairs and Program Directors FLC invites leaders across academic units to collaborate throughout the academic year to address program leadership expectations, changes, challenges, and successes. Chairs and directors serve as liaisons between stakeholders (administration, faculty, staff, students, families, alumni, donors, and community members) to manage significant responsibilities (curriculum, schedules, budget, committees, recruitment, retention, assessment, professional development, strategic planning, and more), while providing vision, upholding morale, and resolving issues. This FLC will balance the needs and abilities ranging from new, incoming chairs/directors to seasoned pros, who may be transitioning back to the faculty or seeking additional leadership roles.  The FLC takes a facilitated workshop approach to prepare leaders, transfer institutional knowledge, share best practices, problem-solve issues in real time, and provide a safe, collegial community of program leaders. To join us, complete this and request to join our

This FLC will meet in the Guerrieri Academic Commons Faculty Lounge, Senate Meeting Room beginning September 5 and alternate Thursdays thereafter. Please see the full schedule and topics for additional details.

Facilitators: Yuki Okubo, Psychology; Haley Cristea, Instructional Design & Delivery; Casey Stratton, Communication

Diversity, Justice, Accessibility, and Mattering (D-JAM) is a topic-based learning community for faculty, staff, and students committed to diversity, inclusion, equity, belonging, and justice. This is our second year applying for funding in an effort to continue bringing folks together across SU committed to work in diversity, social justice accessibility, mattering, equity, and belonging. In this past year, we started meeting a few times a semester to discuss pertinent issues folks felt worthy of discussions and we also collaborated with the Office of Diversity & Inclusion (ODI) in an effort to expand our network. Participating members will determine the goals, time, frequency, and focus of the gatherings throughout the AY 2024-25.

Facilitators: Echo Leaver and Cecilia Acocella, Psychology

The proposed faculty learning community aims to unite individuals from diverse disciplines across campus who teach neuroscience or related courses. Presently, neuroscience education, research, mentoring, and training are fragmented, with individuals scattered across various schools and departments, resulting in limited communication. We lag somewhat in providing cohesive and targeted neuroscience training for our students, preparing them inadequately for graduate school and the workforce, where neuroscience-related skills are highly valued. Despite this challenge, we have outstanding faculty and access to quality resources. This FLC will allow us to spend time collaborating and developing a formal plan to enhance the effectiveness of neuroscience education at SU.

Facilitators: Mike Lewis and Tami Ransom, Environmental Studies

The Environmental Consortium has been meeting for the past four years. It is a community-of-the-wiling, consisting of faculty from Henson, Fulton, Seidel, Perdue (hopefully soon CHHS), as well as staff from various units on campus, most particularly horticulture, sustainability, and recycling. In these once-yearly meetings (convened by Jill Caviglia-Harris and Mike Lewis, using continuing Elkins funds), we have been working to build connections and community between faculty and staff who work on environmentally related themes within their jobs, whether teaching in the disciplines, or working on the grounds, etc. These meetings have resulted in a listing of faculty interests and expertise for sharing; a listing of field trips and location-specific knowledge; sharing ideas for engaging with general education; plans for an environmentally themed high school recruiting event. At our last meeting in February, 2024, we were investigating the possibility of an informal "college of the environment" that might offer curricular and co-curricular opportunities for students who were studying the environment across campus in different departments, as well as promoting further collaboration between siloed faculty who nonetheless share similar interests. This FLC would allow us have a series of discussions with a sub-group of the environmental consortium (including faculty from at least Biology, Geography, Outdoor Education, and Environmental Studies, as well as inviting other members of the Environmental Consortium) to plan out ideas of what this might look like, and next steps to achieve it.

Facilitator: Karen Silverstrim, Instructional Design & Delivery; Katie Delezenski, SU Libraries

At the 2019 General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) they published their . UNESCO defined OER as,  

“learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.”

The Open Educational Resources topic-based FLC is intended to bring together full-time and adjunct faculty interested in adopting and/or creating OER in their courses. OER have become an agent for faculty autonomy over their teaching content, a driving force to reduce textbook costs for students, and an opportunity to increase accessibility and inclusivity of materials for all students.  This FLC will be used as a meeting place for faculty to participate in multi-disciplinary, cross-departmental conversations to explore, create, collaborate, and implement the use of open educational resources for their courses. With two flexible tracks planned for this FLC, faculty who are novices with OER and faculty with a more intermediate understanding will be given the support needed to research, develop, and license OER with the hope of deploying OER in a Spring 2025 course.  

This OER FLC is a continuation of the efforts of the efforts started with the 2022 M.O.S.T. Institutional Grant awarded to ºÚÁÏÍø.

Facilitators: Kimberly Allen, School of Nursing; Catherine Jackson, Interdisciplinary Studies; Janice Orcutt, Instructional Design & Delivery

Generative AI (GenAI) is a technology now widely available and utilized in multiple ways across various industries and disciplines. It is gaining popularity within the University of Maryland System, where both faculty and students are grappling with its challenges. Concerns range from ensuring equitable access to preventing its intentional use for cheating. Plus, employers expect our students to be familiar with this technological tool. The Faculty Learning Community (FLC) on GenAI at ºÚÁÏÍø (SU) is an initiative aimed at exploring the integration, application, and implications of Gen-AI in the academic environment. The FLC will serve as a platform for open conversations about the appropriate and creative use of GenAI, providing faculty with the necessary training to leverage this technology effectively in their teaching practices. Overall, we plan to explore and document attitudes towards GenAI, offer hands-on experiences, facilitate policy development, and collect and analyze data to stay in line with changing technology, with the goal of sharing results with the broader campus community.

Facilitator: Christy Harper, Education Leadership; Ryan Weaver, PACE; Chrys Egan, Communication

The Leadership Studies FLC is for faculty and staff interested in the study and application of leadership on campus and off. Our aim is to connect leadership opportunities at SU and in the community. Here is our history: During the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2022-2023 academic years the Leading the LEAD Faculty Learning Community worked to increase and enhance leadership awareness and development on the ºÚÁÏÍø Campus. During these three academic school years, the members of the FLC read, analyzed and discussed a number of prominent leadership books. Year One Leading the LEAD 2017-2018: Launching a Leadership Revolution: Mastering the Five Levels of Influence by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward, The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell. Year Two Leading the LEAD 2.0 2018-2019: Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box By The Arbinger Institute GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, A Higher Standard: Leadership Strategies from America’s First Female Four Star General by Ann Dunwoody, Resolved: 13 Resolutions for Life by Orrin Woodward. Year Three Leading the LEAD 3.0 2022-2023: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell, Dare to Lead: Brave Work Tough Conversations Whole Hearts by Brené Brown, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins, Bound for the Promised Land Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero, by Kate Clifford Larson .The culminating event of each year’s study was an hour-long virtual meeting with one of the authors. For year #1 is was New York Times Best Selling Author Orrin Woodward who is ranked by Inc. Magazine as the #20 Management and Leadership expert in the world. For year #2, we heard from General Ann Dunwoody, U. S. Army (Ret.), the first female four-star General in US History. For year #3 we met with Dr, Kate Clifford Larson, author of Bound for the Promised Land; Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero. Additionally, the FLC was the driving force behind a new Leadership Studies minor, assisted in the creation of a major in Outdoor Education Leadership, sponsored the Read to Lead day, and sponsored SU’s 2020 Leadership Summit. Leading the LEAD was highly productive. This Leading the LEAD FLC has hit a crossroad. We have spent three years studying leadership, sharpening our own saws while working to develop and coordinate leadership practices and initiatives both on and off campus. We feel it is time to take out efforts to the next level. We are proposing that the Leading the LEAD take point on developing and applying to The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for SU to be recognized under the Classification for Leadership for Public Purpose.

Facilitator: Belen Vicens, History

Teaching is often both gratifying and challenging. And it should be, because challenge incentivizes reflection and our striving to come up with ways to address issues more efficiently. In recent years the challenging aspect of teaching has been weighing heavier on the scale. The pandemic likely contributed, but the challenges were not new. On our plate, the challenges accumulate: students come to us less prepared for college than before; students miss class, some exhibit problem behaviors including disrespecting teachers; mental health issues are on the rise; attention and engagement in class suffer; AI-generated text is interfering with foundational writing and reading skills. Etcetera. “Students are a moving target,” and “I didn’t sign up for this” are expressions of dissatisfaction that can be heard in hallway conversations among colleagues, and it is, frankly, disheartening. We need a space to talk, and to reflect on our teaching. This is the purpose of this FLC: to serve as a forum for faculty to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of teaching.

Facilitators: Jeff Dean, M.A. Student, English, Writing Center; Sally Perret, Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies

This FLC focuses on building Spanish proficiency and intercultural literacy through collaborative reading, writing, and discussion groups. Specifically, members of this FLC will read and discuss a diverse selection of short-to-moderate-length, attainable, but authentic Spanish-literature, including poetry, short stories, academic criticism, creative non-fiction, and short novels. The goal of the FLC is to allow colleagues to participate in contextualized
conversations in Spanish with advanced speakers and possibly even with the authors of the material being discussed, either in person or remotely.

Facilitators: Derya Kulavuz-Onal, English and Mou Chakraborty, SU Libraries

The TwINS FLC (Teaching with International Students) began its first year of activities during the 2019-2020 Academic Year. Our main focus is to explore pedagogies of teaching in the college classrooms where there are international students, especially those for whom English, the medium of instruction at SU, is a second/foreign language. Since September 2019, as members of the FLC, our goals have been to learn more about the different groups of international students, and the processes that international students go through before and during their studies in the United States; to better understand their needs, struggles and successes during their studies; to provide guidance and support in their acculturation process; to engage in advocacy for international students and international faculty on campus and beyond; to provide opportunities for community and career engagement for international students; and most importantly, to collaboratively enhance our college-level teaching pedagogies and differentiated instruction for international students in order to help them succeed in our classes and develop an enhanced sense of belonging on our campus.

Facilitators: Nicholas Troup and Joseph Howard, Physics

Over the Summer of 2024, a planetarium dome & projection system will be installed outside of Henson Hall, and should be operational by early Spring 2025. We are seeking anyone interested in learning how to use this system and exploring (not just astronomical) educational and outreach opportunities this facility will offer.