In the 2017-18 academic year, the Center for Faculty Development is offering a few Faculty Learning Communities, each around a book. To ease scheduling for participants, each Faculty Learning Community will meet during a single quarter and dates and times will be scheduled at the outset.
A faculty learning community is a group of cross-disciplinary faculty (usually 6–12 people) engaging in an active, collaborative program that meets regularly to support each participant's professional development (definition adapted from Miami University, OH). Depending on the chosen book, learning community participants may pick a focus project and agree to apply the ideas, try out innovations, and report back to the group on what they have learned.
The Center for Faculty Development provides you with a copy of the book, refreshments, and a designated “host” for your learning community. At each gathering, you’ll discuss key insights from the assigned reading, questions that arise for you while reading, and, when appropriate, the progress you're making on your own project.
Any Seattle University faculty member, part-time or full-time, can participate in the program.
Are you interested in exploring the key characteristics of the most effective college teachers? What do these teachers know and what do they do to challenge their students to achieve their deepest potential? Ken Bain’s What the Best College Teachers Do explores the findings of a 15-year study of almost 100 college teachers, representing numerous academic disciplines and universities, to answer these questions.
In this three-session Learning Community facilitated by Katherine Raichle (Department of Psychology and Associate Director of Leaning and Teaching) in the spring quarter, you'll work your way through Bain’s book, gaining valuable insight into the myriad ways that highly effective college teachers approach their students, scaffold their lessons and classrooms, and design their courses.
Over the four sessions, you'll learn how to:
This community is for any faculty member who is interested in learning how to improve their learning and teaching practices.
The four dates in Spring Quarter are:
Register by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, April 9.
Edwin Bridges’ The Prudent Professor is a practical guide for faculty at any age who want to prepare for the financial aspects of retirement, and not just let it happen. The book draws on the author’s own careful research and long personal experience in building—and protecting—his retirement funds. He describes with candor his own successes and mistakes and his short, concise chapters provide both the rationale and methodology to identify one’s own personal goals at each stage of one’s career.
In this four-session Learning Community, facilitated by Jacquelyn Miller (Center for Faculty Development) during spring quarter, we'll work our way through the chapters of the book to determine what might work best for you in your own situation.
Over the four sessions, you'll learn how to:
This community is primarily for any faculty member who is interested in retirement planning.
The Prudent Professor is 334 pages long, and reading will be split across the four sessions to be manageable for participants.
The four dates in Spring Quarter are:
Register by 9:00 a.m. on Monday, April 9.
Are you interested in learning about the culture of academia and how to be a more effective faculty member, but are not sure where to begin? Shelda Debowski’s The New Academic: A Strategic Handbook provides a guide for those new(-ish) to academe on how to develop an engaging and productive career as a faculty member.
In this four-session Learning Community facilitated by Jacquelyn Miller (Center for Faculty Development) over winter quarter, you'll work your way through the chapters in the book so that you feel better prepared to fulfill the various roles—colleague, teacher, scholar, disciplinary expert, public professional—expected of a new academic.
Over the four sessions, you'll learn how to:
This community is for any faculty member who is in the early stage of their academic career.
The New Academic is 219 pages long, and the reading will be split across the four sessions to be manageable for participants.
The four dates in Winter Quarter are:
Register by 9:00 a.m. on Tue, Jan 16
Are you interested in challenging the corporatization of the contemporary university’s increasing demands of speed and efficiency from faculty regardless of the consequences for education and scholarship? Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber’s The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy presents both an analysis of the culture of speed in the academy and ways of alleviating stress while improving teaching, research, and collegiality.
In this two-session Learning Community facilitated by Jacquelyn Miller (Center for Faculty Development) during fall quarter, you'll work your way through the chapters of the book so that you are better prepared to live the principles of the Slow movement in academic life as a counter to the erosion of humanistic education.
Over the two sessions, you'll learn how to adopt the principles of the Slow movement into your professional practice in an effective way to:
This community is primarily for any faculty member who is interested in learning about changes in academic culture due to a more corporate approach and how to offset those changes in order to improve life–work balance.
The Slow Professor is just 94 pages long, and reading will be split across the two sessions to be manageable for participants.
The two dates in Fall Quarter are:
Registration is now closed.