FLC Final Reports

Completing a Scholarly Project during the Academic Year Description

Peer support and the mutual accountability of a writing community provide a structure that encourages faculty scholarly productivity. This Faculty Learning Community will create the physical and intellectual space to work on projects with a view to developing a publishable result. Meetings will include discussions of writing practices and suggestions to help writers with those practices, and the opportunity for peer response, in addition to space and time for writing.

Number of Meetings and Participants

11 Meetings. 14 Participating Faculty:

• Christine Gottlieb
• Summer Jackson
• Stephanie Seitz
• Jessica Santone
• Casey Nichols
• Semih Yilmaz
• Jennifer Sherwood
• Stephanie Alexander
• Mari Gray
• Amy Below
• Albert Mendoza
• Li-Ling Chen
• Pradeep Ramanathan
• Pascale Guiton

Participants’ Output

“I was able to complete a book chapter and an article. I am working on two additional articles that I will complete over the summer.”

“I was able to submit a manuscript that I'd been working on.”

“In addition to writing an exhibition review in December/January, I was able to lay research/reading foundation for my summer writing project. I expect to continue the work and hope to prepare an article to submit for review very soon”

"I was able to complete 1 journal paper and 2 conference papers"

Faculty Feedback

“Participating in this FLC enabled me to make progress on some of the projects that I planned to invite students to assist. I made enough progress on some projects to scaffold experiences for students to become involved.”

“I learned strategies both to help me and my students (I teach writing). I am much more intentional about setting a regular writing time, even if it is only 30 minutes daily. I also have expanded my view of what counts as writing (researching relevant articles, revising, etc..).”

“It was a good use of my time. I built community and learned from others. I valued the time to sit and work on a project.”

“The FLC taught me to balance research while teaching.”

Writer’s ToolKit

The Faculty Learning Community for the Completing a Scholarly Project During the Academic Year has developed the following writer’s toolkit.

The purpose of this toolkit is to support faculty in planning, managing, executing, and focusing on the completion of a scholarly project.

Tools and Strategies Covered:

• Pomodoro Technique
• Trello
• Cold Turkey
• Notecard Method
• Predatory Jorunals, How to Spot Them
• Research Gate
• Writing Journals
• Mendeley
• Zotero

Supporting Students with Complex and Overlapping Challenges

This hands-on, action-oriented Faculty Learning Community explored intersectional strengths and needs of students experiencing complex and overlapping challenges, which include food and housing insecurity, disability, physical or mental health conditions, family obligations, and more. FLC members analyzed data from The Pioneers for HOPE Learning Framework, a two-year project funded by the Stupski Foundation to investigate and identify strategies that support underserved and under-resourced students to make academic progress and complete their degrees. For more information, please check out our website.

Number of Meetings and Participants

FLC members met 11 times during AY 2018-2019, and also participated in the Kick Off and Year-End Celebration of Teaching. Most members of the FLC are continuing to meet in Summer 2019 as we are completing products from our work together.

14 Faculty and staff participated in this FLC:

• Lee Adams, Library
• Lael Adediji, Renaissance Scholars
• Jeffra Bussman, Library
• Alina Engelman, Health Sciences
• Ryan Gamba, Health Sciences
• Mariana Guzzardo, Human Development
• Matthew Moore, Health Sciences (joined February 2019)
• Natalie Ingraham, Sociology
• Ali Jones-Bey, Learning Framework
• Shubha Kashinath, Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences
• Nidhi Khosla, Health Sciences
• ZáNean McClain, Kinesiology
• Sarah Taylor, Social Work (Faculty-in-Residence/Facilitator)
• Negin Toosi, Psychology

Participants’ Output

FLC members completed or are completing several products from our analysis of data on faculty-student interactions from the Pioneers for Hope Learning Framework project:

• Poster presented at the Week of Scholarship (student and faculty symposiums): The poster was led by student research assistants working on the project with support from FLC members. The purpose of the poster was to share information about our students (e.g. graduation rates, proportion of students experiencing food insecurity and homelessness, etc.) and early findings about what students say about their positive and negative experiences in interactions with faculty.
• Two-page information sheet, "A Call for Faculty, by Faculty:" The information sheet will be distributed to all faculty on campus in hard copy and electronically in Fall 2019. It describes simple things faculty can do to support students.
• Online modules for faculty about campus supports and services, challenges students experience in meeting their basic needs, accessibility and universal design for learning, and more.
• Two papers to be submitted to peer-reviewed publications, one each focused on faculty and student perspectives in student-faculty interactions.
• A presentation (accepted) at the National Women's Studies Association conference in October 2019 in San Francisco.
• A presentation (submitted) to Back to the Bay at CSU East Bay in August 2019.
• To complete the above work, FLC members participated in or co-facilitated (depending on experience) training in qualitative analysis with Dedoose software as well as Zotero for managing our shared bibliography. Faculty who had not completed online human subjects training in the past three years renewed their certificates.
• FLC members also shared teaching practices with one another on topics such as universal design, managing online discussion boards, teaching students how to create infographics, and more.

Faculty Feedback

• "I have learned new teaching practice[s] to create a more accessible and inclusive classroom. "
• "I really enjoyed getting to know the others on this FLC. It does make me feel more connected to the campus having built these relationships with people in different departments, etc. "
• "The work in this FLC will produce two papers, real deliverables based on work within this FLC. I have found this FLC to be very productive and useful to my development as a scholar. Also, as a mentor, in the sense that I have received concrete suggestions to make myself a better mentor to my students (more knowledgeable of the challenges they face and therefore more empathetic, and more aware of strategies/teaching practices/ practical information to give students re: supportive services on campus. "
• "I will incorporate specific suggestions and teaching practices shared in this FLC including videos on BB, in-class or online activities, and text to incorporate into my syllabi to make it more flexible and inclusive. "
• "It has deepened my understanding of complex challenges students face and I am already revising my syllabi for the Fall accordingly and thinking about new pedagogical approaches to engage students. "
• "We had a part of our FLC where we shared teaching practices and it was SO helpful. I am incorporating several ideas into my own courses around accessibility, student participation grades and using technology. "
• "I've learned about a lot of resources that the university offers and have been able to share them with students. "
• "My philosophy of teaching has become even more flexible and adaptive as I learn more about the challenges our students face. Reading the student interviews helps me to understand more of the student perspective. Also, learning and knowing that I am not the only one who struggles to be sensitive to students challenges while maintaining some element of content rigor is reassuring. "
• "This group has pushed me to reflect more deeply on my practice. In looking at data about campus resources and faculty interactions, I have developed a more thoughtful approach to student challenges, how I deal with them, and how they impact learning. "

FINAL REPORT

Building a Robust Faculty Mentoring Program at CSUEB

FLC 2018-2019

Purpose: By collaborating across colleges and having faculty with varying levels of experience, we will develop a mentoring program that supports both mentors and mentees in the variety of their faculty roles and across their careers.

Projected Outcomes: The main outcome will be the building blocks of university mentoring program which could include, but are not limited to, the following elements:

• Best practices guide for both faculty mentors and mentees;
• A template for mentorship which can be tweaked to reflect departmental and college demands; and
• Training and support of mentors and support for mentor-mentee pairs.

FLC Members: Paul Carpenter, Monique Manopoulos

Meetings, Activities and Guests

• 11 meetings which included breaks for research, interviews, participation in related activities and consultations
• The participants separately, or together, consulted with or attended:
  • Four newly-hired faculty who were attending one of the activities sponsored by OFD;
  • Associate provost Linda Dobb regarding institutional interest and support for a mentoring program;
  • Eileen Barrett and Kim Geron regarding the draft proposal;
  • Nicholas Baham, Duke Austin and Ryan Gamba regarding their experiences in mentoring students and in mentoring other faculty;
  • Listening Session on Experiences with Student Behavior conducted by Sarah Taylor and James Carroll (April 30);
  • Mentoring Expansion Discussion organized by Sarah Taylor and Ali Jones-Bey with the participation of Maureen Scharberg and Kimberly Baker-Flowers (April 18); and
  • FLC Final Event.

• Results from consultations, workshops and research
  • On mentoring programs
    • There is no institutionalized faculty mentoring program in any of the CSUs.
    • Institutionalized mentoring programs are usually found in research universities or larger state universities.
    • Best practices for setting a fully-functioning mentoring program would require institutional support as well as dedicated people coordinating and participating in the program.
    • In terms of program content, the following were found to be informative and can be adapted to the needs of CSUEB: Mentoring formats; Best practices for mentors and mentees; Best practices in mentor-mentee partnerships; and Tool kits and specific forms.
  • Needs of new faculty
    • Just-in-time help
    • Resource book, which would include all acronyms
    • List of resources for faculty which would include relocation, housing, community
    • List of resources for students
    • List of experts to whom new faculty can turn for specific questions
    • Extend the mentoring program to include lecturers and bridge the information divide between lecturers and TT faculty
    • Background on cultural aspect in US, specifically California, for international faculty
  • Regarding students
    • Knowing when to “act” and how to help students who might be in distress
    • Need someone to call if faculty have questions especially, for example, when to file a CARE Report
    • Help for faculty who may be experience vicarious trauma
    • Reassurance of support from the institution
  • Teaching-related
    • Understanding the lived experiences of CSUEB students
    • Sensitivity to the use of language
    • De-escalation and other techniques to deal with difficult situations in the classroom
    • Setting expectations for classroom behavior
    • Exchanging teaching advice and experience
  • Career: More clarity about the RTP process; Understanding CSUEB’s institutional/organizational culture; Research grants
  • Overall support for faculty: Empathy; Principle of mutuality in the mentor-mentee partnership within concrete boundaries; How to help faculty through challenging situations
  • Support for a mentoring program
    • There is support in principle from the office of the Provost. Linda Dobb raised her concern about the high turn-over of chairs and the need for better training of chairs over and beyond the initial chairs’ training provided by the college.
    • New faculty are also interested in this especially if there are informal contacts. They also noted the need for mentor-mentee matching.
    • It was also suggested that the mentor-mentee partnership could be between 2 to 3 years or beyond.
  • Training for faculty mentors can include: unconscious bias; anti-racism and social justice; unique needs of faculty stemming from issues of identity (people of color, culture, nationality, gender identity)
  • Possible incentives for faculty to mentor other faculty
    • Time is a limited resource, especially with increasing teaching load and administrative work required of the faculty.
    • Possible incentives include: release time, monetary rewards, adding a new category of accomplishment (“Master Teacher”), and other forms of recognition.
    • Faculty continue to suggest the need to have a Faculty Lounge.
  • It was also suggested that standards could be developed organically through proper faculty governance procedures.

FLC Members’ Feedback (Questionnaire)

· The members identified the projects and activities that they accomplished: framework for developing a mentoring program; need for one-stop tool/app the provides important information and resources for faculty; long-term and short-term goals for building the program.

· In response to the question if they expect a change in their teaching approaches or philosophies, the members said that they became more aware of needs of new faculty which reinforced their belief in the value of mentoring for faculty.

· The members also said that they hope student engagement will change if there are better-prepared faculty in the future.

· They said that interaction and collaboration were important aspects of this FLC.

· The main change that the members identified was to find ways to get more faculty involved in developing this program.

· One of the members said that an indirect benefit to him was the Provost’s office expressed need to have a mentoring program for chairs.

· The members said that they were interested in the following FLCs: Teaching overlays, Supporting and Training Faculty as Faculty Mentors (BRM program part II), Peer observation of online teaching, Peer observation of teaching: writing intensive courses, and Inclusive teaching practices.

Outputs of the FLC:

The three main outputs of the FLC are a working proposal, a compilation of mentoring and mentee resources, and a compilation of lessons and best practices in the mentor-mentee partnership. (See attached.)

1. Draft/working proposal on “Mentorship for professor and student success” with the following sections:

a. Rationale

b. Mission

c. Vision

d. Goals

e. Guiding Principles for the Mentoring Program

f. Guiding Principles for Mentor-Mentee Partnership

g. Roadmap

2. Resources for mentors:

a. Mentor roles

b. Mentoring skills inventory

c. Mentor attributes

d. Programs to build mentor skills and knowledge

e. Application form for mentors

f. Mentor toolkit

3. Resources for mentees:

a. Responsibilities of Mentees

b. Mentee toolkit: proactive questions, choosing a mentor, request for mentoring

c. Mentee needs and goal-setting worksheet

d. Mentee needs assessment for additional support

4. Compilation of lessons and best practices in the mentor-mentee partnership

a. Mentor-mentee engagement

b. Sample mentor-mentee agreement

c. Mentoring formats

d. Mentoring meeting journal

e. Negative mentor-mentee experiences

There were, of course, some questions that need to be addressed in future iterations of this FLC (which could be in the form of another FLC or intermittent workshops):

· How do identify those most in need of mentoring?

· Are there enough senior faculty for classic 1-1 mentoring?

· Is it possible to have a “mentor of the moment”?

· Should the mentor also be an advocate for the mentee?

· Peer mentoring is important but enthusiasm depends on the individuals themselves.

· How can we overcome the hesitation of associate and full professors to asking for further mentoring and training?

First-Generation Success & Retention Faculty Learning Community

Faculty Learning Community

Final Report

Faculty in Residence: Duke W. Austin, PhD

May 2019

The First-Gen FLC was comprised of several parts, including the following:

· Curricular Changes: Each FLC member elected to make one curricular or pedagogical change to their curriculum or their pedagogy in order to address the needs of first-generation college students and with the goal of improving the success and retention of those students. The changes that FLC members made are documented below. We all had 15 minutes during our our FLC meetings to check-in and update the progress of our changes.

· Classroom Observations: Each FLC member sat in on the class of one of the other members in order to watch them implement their curricular change and provide feedback. The observing FLC members then wrote feedback letters for the member that they observed.

· Background Research and Presentations: Each FLC member completed background research on the teaching techniques that benefit first-generation college students and provided a 45-minute presentation about their findings to the other FLC members during our regular meetings. This resulted in a bibliography with I have included below.

· Student Services Tour: As FIR, I gave the first “presentation” which was a tour of student service centers on campus.

Curricular Changes

Benjamin Klein (History)

In an effort to encourage first-generation student success, I adopted the following “impactful recommendations” outlined by Ben Galina and Alecea Standlee: “be transparent in the classroom,” “use rubrics,” “teach study skills,” “organize groups,” and “facilitate connections.” The results of these curricular changes were mixed. On the one hand, students made little effort to improve the quality of their written work; one the other hand, a number of students expressed their appreciation for hand- outs and links to resources for research and writing, group discussion, and the campus lecture by the novelist Michael David Lukas.

Emilia Ianeva (Sociology)

In SOC 340 Sociology of Gender, I introduced panel discussions on topic selected by my students. All students embraced that activity. Other changes included: interviews with my students, a visit to the International Museum of Women, a guest speaker who is a recent CSUEB Sociology graduate.

Marina Sapozhnikov (English)

The first curriculum change I implemented this semester was adding 2 questions to Student Information form distributed in my English 300, 301 and 3 sections of English 302 (e.g., “Are you a first-generation college student?” and “How do you think this fact has affected your college learning experience?”) The second change involved using sample student writings when teaching Critical Analysis Essay in 3 sections of English 302 (Discursive Writing). As a result, I was able to determine exact percentages (48%- 69%) of first-generation students in my courses, to observe drastic improvement in understanding the premise of critical analysis as demonstrated in students’ essay drafts, and overall, to experience a different change – that of higher awareness and better understanding of first-generation students’ behaviors and struggles.

Greg Brueck (History)

I created permanent small groups within my 70-student introductory history class. Throughout the semester, these groups met in class to discuss course materials and completed collaborative homework assignments using Blackboard's wiki feature. The structure of these activities built community and incentivized students to explore and analyze a diverse array of course readings.

Duke Austin (Sociology)

I sent my entire Capstone class to the Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting to attend at least two sessions and one reception. I then had students evaluate their learning experience at the conference. Fifteen out of the sixteen students reported that they had an overwhelmingly positive experience that deepened their understanding of and appreciation for the discipline of Sociology.

Jeri Little (Psychology)

I examined the benefit of using clickers on later exam performance in two sections of Cognitive Psychology. The use of clickers reliably improved performance on previously tested questions (and numerically improved performance on previously non-tested related questions). Continuing- generation students showed an increase of 7 percentage points from baseline for previously tested and related questions. First-generation students showed an increase of 13 percentage points from baseline on these same questions.

Heather Vilhauer (Hospitality, Recreation and Tourism)

I added mini-lessons on college success skills to my REC 235, Leisure, Self and Society course. This course was part of the freshman pathways. Mini- lessons included those on scheduling, study habits, note-taking, APA style, grammar, and plagiarism. Students set goals around certain lessons and practiced other lessons throughout the semester.

Bibliography

Chatelain, M. (2018, October 21). We Must Help First-Generation Students Master Academe’s ‘Hidden Curriculum’. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Help-First- Generation/244830

Collier, P. J., & Morgan, D. L. (2007). “Is that paper really due today?”: Differences in first-generation and traditional college students’ understandings of faculty expectations. Higher Education, 55(4), 425- 446. doi:10.1007/s10734-007-9065-5

Engle, J., Bermeo, A., & O’Brien, C. (2016, December). Straight from the source (Rep.). Retrieved http://www.pellinstitute.org/downloads/publications-Straight_from_the_Source.pdf

Engle, J., & Tinto, V. (n.d.). Moving beyond access (Rep.). Retrieved May 10, 2019, from Pell Institute website: http://www.pellinstitute.org/downloads/publications-Moving_Beyond_Access_2008.pdf

Good Morning America. (n.d.). Michelle Obama’s 5 tips for first-generation students on their way to college. Retrieved from https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/michelle-obamas-tips- generation-students-college-55890946

Mcdaniel, R. (2018, June 13). Teaching first-generation college students. Retrieved from https://cft. vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-first-generation-college-students/

Standlee, A. (2019, April 11). Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved May 10, 2019, from https://www. insidehighered.com/views/2019/04/11/policies-and-practices-help-first-generation-college-students- succeed-opinion

Zinshteyn, M. (2016, March 23). The Key to Ensuring First-Generation College Students Succeed. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/03/how-to-help-first-generation- students-succeed/473502/