Session Chair: Joyce Fernandes, Miami University

1. Preparing the Next Generation of Faculty Through a Community of Practice: the Denison Teaching Seminar for Pre-Tenure Faculty

Lew Ludwig

Denison University

The Center for Teaching and Learning at Denison University offers professional development opportunities to junior faculty to assist them in adjusting to the university. Previously, this was in the form of a teaching-focused reading group open to all first-year tenure and non-tenure track faculty. However, the program had inconsistent results, with many tenure-track faculty leaving the program.

In the fall of 2020, we introduced the Denison Teaching Seminar (DTS), a community of practice for junior tenure-track faculty in their first three years. The program is modeled after the Teaching Seminar for Incoming Faculty at Connecticut College. The seminar has a more intentional approach than the reading group. First, the DTS bolsters the existing departmental mentoring programs and provides a unique peer-mentoring structure between faculty cohorts. Second, participants interact with five years of faculty colleagues (two ahead and two behind), building a rich sense of community and common purpose. Finally, the program addresses the challenges of faculty teaching at a small college.

During this presentation, we will examine the DTS's structure, its success in fostering community among junior faculty and explore how it can be replicated at other institutions. No previous knowledge or experience is necessary to attend.

2. Faculty of Color Network

Irene Lόpez, Simon Garcia

Kenyon College

We report findings from a significant and growing body of research on the experiences of faculty of color; and demonstrate an online resource to navigate this literature. Compared with White colleagues, faculty of color are more likely to employ a wide range of pedagogical techniques, including experiential and discussion-based teaching, that prioritize critical thinking skills and consideration of multiple standpoints. They also are more likely to address cultural relevance and diversity-related issues in their subject more readily, and thus help to diversify the curriculum — even though the research shows that discussing such issues may come at a cost and lead to lower course evaluations. Outside of the classroom, students of color tend to rely on faculty of color to be role models and to provide culturally responsive mentoring; while offices tend to rely on them to instantiate institutional diversity and to detect tacit barriers to racial equity. These distinctive contributions require effort that competes with academic productivity and professional expectations, resulting in a “double bind”.  At the same time, faculty of color contend with disparate workplace treatment by colleagues and students, which leads to social marginalization and amplifies feelings of invisibility, hypervisibility, and exclusion. We have curated a bibliography of these findings at facultyofcolornetwork.com, and we invite educational leaders to use this literature to inform their action plans. We also affirm a message for our fellow faculty of color: “We see you, we hear you, we recognize you — what you do is valuable and should be celebrated.”

3. Development of Early Faculty Mentoring at a Small Liberal Arts College

Erin Wilson

Westminster College

The presentation will communicate recent efforts toward improving faculty mentoring and support at a small, liberal arts college with an emphasis on early career mentoring.  Starting from having little beyond a one-day new faculty orientation, early faculty mentoring has been significantly expanded over the last three academic years.  The recently implemented mentoring program includes regular meetings of the first-year faculty cohort with the Faculty Development Officer (FDO), classroom visit exchanges between new faculty members and members of the Faculty Development Committee and just-in-time training in student advising, internal faculty development funding and faculty evaluation processes.  Early faculty mentoring continues into the second year with a mid-probationary review and portfolio preparation workshop and into the third and sixth years with "practice review committee" meetings.  Development, implementation and faculty perceptions of the new programming will be discussed.