Opportunities

Teaching squares are groups of four faculty members who visit each other’s classes -- to learn from each other, not to evaluate each other -- and then get together to discuss what they learned from the visits. (Groups of three may also form a teaching triangle.)

To support these goals, I can help by 

• • providing prompts to guide the class visits and/or the debrief (in addition to my Teaching Squares Guide), and

  • supporting your debrief conversation by covering the cost for a meal together on campus.

After the debrief, each participant will be asked to submit a very brief report (download here) on insights gained from the experience.  

✍🏼  Apply for support for a Teaching Square (or Triangle) by completing this form.  ✍🏼  

Faculty are invited to propose a Faculty Learning Community (FLC)—a small, faculty-led group that meets regularly over a semester or academic year to explore a shared topic related to teaching or more broadly to their professional growth. 

TWU FLCs aim to foster meaningful conversation, mutual support, and purposeful change.  This change may be modest or radical, but the spirit of these groups is to amplify impact beyond the group members through

• a tangible product (e.g., a teaching resource), 

• a curricular innovation (e.g., redesigned course or course sequence), 

• a campus event (e.g., a workshop, panel, or brown bag lunch), 

• a broader dissemination of insights (e.g., a publication, presentation, or op ed), or

• another impactful result.

Selected proposals will receive modest funding for refreshments or books and may request help with planning and facilitation.

✍🏼  Propose a Faculty Learning Community completing this form.  ✍🏼  

In most faculty members’ long "To Do" lists, "Write that [article / book / collection of poems / PAS / symphony / grant proposal]!" is often demoted when urgent but less important tasks pop up, so writing perennially disappears from calendars from August until June. If you're looking for a sustainable writing practice during the academic year, and if accountability, structure, and community sound like helpful writing support, apply to join a Writing Accountability Group (WAG).

WAGs are writing accountability groups (not peer review groups, writing exchanges, or time for chatting) that focus on the process and prioritization -- not the content -- of writing. If participants follow the process below, they work!

How do WAGs work? 

A WAG is a group of 4 faculty members who meet for 7 one-hour sessions during the semester (according to their own schedule) to hold each other accountable and support each other's writing progress.  After developing personalized writing plans, each WAG member tracks their progress in a shared accountability document, establishes and celebrates milestones, and cultivates a writing practice they can live with.  See below for more details. 

What?

• • Meet 7 times throughout the semester -- roughly every other week. (See the specific structure of these meetings below.)

  • Track your progress in a shared accountability document.

When?

• • Each WAG sets its own meeting days & times that span the semester.

Where?

• Each WAG decides whether its meetings will be in person or virtual.  (Recommended in-person locations: the Faculty Commons on MCL 8th floor, a meeting room on campus, the library, or a local coffeehouse.)

 Why?

• • Get some writing done!

  • Participants who fully participate in at least 6 of the 7 scheduled WAG meetings and track their progress in our shared document will receive a $300 stipend.

How do I join a WAG?

There are two ways to join a WAG:  

• The easiest is to apply as a pre-formed WAG of 4 faculty members.  

• Or you may apply individually, and -- once there are three other individual applicants -- you'll be placed together in a WAG. 

Once formed, each WAG will meet with Nancy Chick for a 30-minute orientation meeting (virtual) to learn about the WAG's logistics, schedule their regular one-hour meetings, and set an initial goal to start writing. 

WAG Tools & Resources

Writing Project Planners

• 1. Choose among these writing plan templates to break your project into manageable phases, goals, tasks, and timelines. 

Structure of WAG Meetings 

Each WAG meeting is 60 minutes, tracks its activities in our shared document, and follows this precise schedule:

• 15 minutes: Report on the progress toward your goal since the last WAG meeting, and set a goal for today’s 30-minute writing session.

• 30 minutes: Write. (Mute and turn your camera off if you're virtual.) You'll be surprised at how much you can do in a 30-minute writing session!

• 15 minutes:  Report on today’s progress, and set a goal you'll work towards before your next WAG meeting. 

Shared Accountability Document

• WAGs track their plans and progress in a shared accountability document that looks like this template. (Only participants will have access to the live version.)

Designed and facilitated by Dr. Karen Dunlap (Faculty Liaison, Professor Emeritus Curriculum and Instruction), WOW is two-week program of writing (or engaging in scholarly activities) for at least 20 minutes a day. Get some writing done, and enjoy the accountability and fun of following Oakley on his adventures.  Learn more here.

Give yourself a block of time to write by adding these to your calendar. No agenda, no program—just a supportive space for uninterrupted writing. Bring your materials (and headphones if needed), and enjoy coffee, tea, fizzy water, and snacks while you work.  

• During the semester, the writing retreats will be individual days when you can drop-in when you're able.  

• After the semester, the writing retreats will be more intensive--three days in a row when you sign up for blocks of time to get some serious writing done.

Stay tuned for the Spring-Summer 2026 dates and details.