2022 - 2023 Faculty Learning Communities

Facilitators: Christina Bradley, Biological Sciences; Thomas Cawthern, Geography and Geosciences; Jennifer Nyland, Biological Sciences

The Academic Caregiver Exchange at Salisbury University will bring together faculty, staff, and students with caregiving responsibilities to discuss needs and solutions at individual, community, and administrative levels to facilitate thriving in the academic environment. This FLC seeks to create a coalition of individuals across departments, schools, and positions, who can support one another, build inclusion, and work to advise the university on best practices. There is a distinct need for broader community building among faculty, staff, and students with care giving responsibilities and such a community can provide additional opportunities and a network of contributors. At its most basic, this FLC seeks to increase a sense of belonging in faculty, staff, and students who find themselves often isolated with at home responsibilities and fractionated across campus by responsibilities and memberships within their own departments, schools, and professional affiliations.

Facilitators:  Becky Anthony, Social Work; Erin Stutelberg, Secondary and Physical Education; Sandy Pope, Secondary and Physical Education

Grading in higher education is driven by various (and often, competing) instructor goals including providing feedback to students, motivating students, comparing students, and measuring learning. But much of the research on grading suggests that we aren’t achieving these goals with our current grading practices, and, in fact, grading may inhibit the kind of pedagogical practices that could create a more effective and engaging classroom learning environment (Schinske & Tanner, 2014). In this  FLC we will: 1. explore purposes and methods of grading the college classroom, 2. discuss how alternative approaches to grading can fit into faculty courses, 3. and develop plans and try out alternative approaches to grading in current  courses.

Facilitators: Tim Stock, Philosophy and Tina Plottel, SU Libraries

Invitees are selected based on (1) centrality of ethics to teaching and professional development (2) leadership roles around ethics curricula across campus and (3) disciplinary diversity (4) engagement with existing ethics activities. Ethics ought to be strengthened as an intrinsic component of undergraduate education at Salisbury University. There are innumerable contemporary rationale to consider, which include: 

• Community-based research by the REACH initiative about local ethics concerns, including transparency and accountability, housing, wealth inequality, policing, and the environment.
• The COVID-19 public health crisis, which has highlighted insufficient depth of ethics resources in our health care system and a lack of support for non-clinical resources aimed at the social determinants of health.
• The prevalence of social problems such as wealth inequality, systemic racism and environmental collapse that require changes in the way we think about personal responsibility and collective action.
• Questions of transparency and access to sensitive decision points, operational knowledge, intellectual property, and other institutional barriers to public participation in decision making, highlighting an increased need for ethics training in leadership and more open government, budgeting, and administration.

This FLC will explore five key topic areas: Ethics in Health and Human Services; Ethics in Law and Society; Ethics in Human Experience; Ethics in Schools; and Ethics in Research. Target community of 25-30 participants.

Facilitators: Shane Hall, Environmental Studies; Ryan Conrath, English

With a light heart and joyful mind, the Grad School 101 FLC will revisit the introductory and basic graduate theories underpinning the modern humanities and social sciences. Humanities and social science disciplines share similar theoretical foundations, and introductory graduate-level coursework in these fields share many topics and authors. However, it is likely that many participants in this FLC may not have revisited a broad range of canonical theory texts since graduate study. The FLC participants will identify common, foundational theories and concepts in our respective fields, but not necessarily central to our own areas of expertise and research. Our community will model “remarkable remedial education” through appreciative “shameless humiliation”-- that is, by giving up any pretense of our usual academic expertise and reacquaint ourselves with what is was like to be new students in our fields.

Facilitators: Shane Hall, Environmental Studies

Although Black, Indigenous, and people of Color (BIPOC) are often affected first and worst by environmental problems, white people disproportionately occupy positions of power in mainstream environmental organizations, governmental agencies, and foundations. Although people of color make up over 36% of the U.S. population, they constitute only 12-15% of mainstream environmental staff positions (Taylor 2014, 2016, 2019). The advocacy organization, Green 2.0, calls this “the Green Ceiling.” This FLC will explore the ways in which SU can contribute to breaking the “green ceiling” that has excluded BIPOC students and working class students from entering into environmental professions and post-secondary education. 

The “Green Diversity FLC” is composed of faculty and staff across “environmentally focused” studies and science departments at SU to provide educational and career support BIPOC students in fields relating to the natural environment and built environment, sustainability, energy and resource management, environmental justice, and related areas. Environmental NGOs, government agencies, and foundations have well-documented “racial and ethnic diversity gaps,” and less well documented but widely acknowledged socioeconomic class gaps. As SU is poised to add more "sustainability" tagged courses to its curricula across many departments, the time is ripe to focus on faculty development around making our "green" spaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Environmental studies and science departments must play a crucial role in this work. We are the major higher education pipelines to environmental jobs in government organizations like the EPA and NOAA as well as research, education, and advocacy nonprofits and businesses. This FLC will allow us to hold cross-disciplinary conversations, targeted faculty development, and organized efforts to take up this important work.

Facilitator: Yujia Song, Philosophy

The Health Humanities FLC brings together faculty from different schools and departments who share common interests in medicine, health, and related topics. Our members come from philosophy, communication, sociology, psychology, and nursing. The FLC is the driving force behind the new Minor in Health Humanities. Given the Minor is still in its infancy, we need to continue to refine the curriculum to adapt to faculty and student interests. The FLC serves as an important point of connection through which information can be shared and contacts made more easily. Since the FLC is ultimately about faculty development, we see it as providing invaluable opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching and scholarship and highly interested in collaboration on research projects. As we all teach courses related to health and medicine, the FLC facilitates discussion and brainstorming of ideas regarding course development and pedagogical strategies.

Facilitator: Haley Cristea, Instructional Design & Delivery

Recent research suggests that a universal design for learning (UDL) pedagogical approach supports student self-efficacy, culturally equitable environments, and accessible content to meet the needs of various learners by providing multiple means of engagement and representation. This Intentional Universal Design for Equity and Inclusion FLC will follow a book club approach where we read, discuss, plan, and intentionally implement UDL principles to

1. design for accessibility by designing for all learners (Tobin & Behling, 2018),
2. support diverse learners through culturally responsive and equitable UDL principles (Chardin & Novak, 2021),
3. design and apply UDL in disciplinary settings (Murawski & Scott, 2019),
4. and incorporate flexibility and technology with UDL (Chardin & Novak, 2021).

The objective of this FLC is to explore, discuss, and reflect on UDL practices already in use, and plan to implement new UDL principles through multi-disciplinary, cross-departmental conversations in a reflective learning environment of like-minded UDL advocates who can offer support to each other during this process. Members can share experiences to cultivate UDL successes, mitigate challenges, and brainstorm ways for continuous course improvement. New assignments, types of instructional materials, and course flow are possible outcomes of this FLC.

Facilitator: Catherine Jackson, Interdisciplinary Studies

The Interdisciplinary Teaching and Research FLC brings together faculty and staff involved in leading interdisciplinary programs and scholarship at SU. Over the past few years, the Interdisciplinary Studies programs have been among the top three fastest growing majors at SU. New interdisciplinary majors in the Fulton School of Liberal Arts are either under development or nearing curriculum approval, current majors are undergoing revision, there are four new interdisciplinary minors in the last five years (with more under development), and the Henson School has developed its own interdisciplinary major. With this increasing focus on interdisciplinarity, there is also an eagerness among faculty and staff to gather and learn more about interdisciplinarity, the impact interdisciplinary programs have on student learning and organizational structures, and the development of best practices for interdisciplinary teaching, learning, and research. This FLC engages practitioners in these conversations to apply interdisciplinary practices throughout campus.

Facilitator: Doug DeWitt, Education Leadership; Chrys Egan, Communication

Leadership is an essential component of every aspect of personal and professional life.  The objective of the Leading the LEAD 3.0 FLC is to continue to develop and promote the importance of leadership and leadership development on campus and within the greater Salisbury community.  The FLC has three primary objectives: [1] continue to develop the leadership knowledge, skills, and capacity of the FLC members; [2] organize a Leadership Summit that will bring together leaders from across the campus and the greater Salisbury community to address leadership issues and solutions; and [3] work with campus and student leadership to illustrate and systematize leadership development and mentoring at Salisbury University.

Facilitators: Shawn McEntee, Sociology

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) FLC welcomes all faculty, staff, and graduate students interested in all things related to continuously improving teaching and learning -- whether you are interested in networking with your SU colleagues, learning more about what is out there across disciplines and topics, sharing your expertise, or getting support on your SoTL-related activities! Please visit the SoTL FLC website for more information, including:

• the description, purpose, and goals of the SoTL FLC;
• how you can join;
• the SoTL MyClasses Course;
• supporting the SoTL Fellowship; or
• learning more about the SoTL Fellowship.

Facilitators: Ryan Sporer, Sociology; Meredith Patterson, Psychology, Lisa Marquette, Exercise Science

Slow Professor Reading Club: Faculty Reengagement and Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy FLC is an invitation to collectively reflect on problematic trends in our profession, their manifestation in our personal lives, and an appeal to rethink what it means to be a professor today and tomorrow. The FLC is based on the book with the same title written by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber. Finding affinity with slow movements (i.e., Slow Food, Slow Fashion, Slow Living) the authors critique the “frantic pace” and “‘McDonaldization’ of higher ed’”. Rather than assuming individual faculty need to simply follow self-help gurus of time management, they propose beginning with a reexamination of (un)spoken culture. Pausing, breathing, and listening in the classroom; nonlinear progression of writing and research; the serendipitous unfolding of thought; and collegiality becoming community are some of the themes explored. Moving from reflection to operationalizing the FLC will also conduct a pilot study using The Maslach Burnout Inventory Educators Survey. We believe “the great faculty disengagement” has knowable sources and achievable resolutions.  

Facilitator: Kathleen Shannon, Mathematics

We wish to gather a group of faculty-members who have been full professors for 6 years or longer at Salisbury University and who do not plan to retire within the next 3 years (at a minimum) to discuss and, hopefully codify, the role(s) of long term (full) professors at this University.  We feel strongly that this is an important and frequently overlooked cohort and that having an opportunity to gather and share insights, not just on our roles at the university but also the challenges associated with an ever-changing landscape and the changes that occur in our own lives as we grow and age would be valuable, not just to the group, but to the institution at large, and potentially to the larger academic community. We would argue that long-term full professors have watched a significant decline in interaction across campus and among colleagues, a university that increasingly rewards individual accomplishments over community building and an increasingly divisive atmosphere generally.  There is a danger that we will feel that our interests are best served by pulling away from campus engagement and “keeping our heads down” until we are ready to retire.  We have been able to find little in the literature that addresses the roles of long-term successful faculty and the difficulties associated with remaining engaged.  We propose to investigate this issue, determine the extent to which it is a problem at SU, develop mechanisms to provide support to this group and to disseminate our findings in a number of ways.  We welcome inquiries from any SU Professor who was fully promoted as of Fall 2016. We hope to gather a collegial group that is representative (except in the area of age) of the diversity of the campus. 

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

This FLC focuses on exploring pedagogies of teaching in the college classrooms where there are international students. Although we acknowledge that “international students” is not a homogeneous group, we primarily define the target group of international students that we want to focus on as those who are born in another country where a different language than English is spoken dominantly, and who recently came to the United States within a study abroad program or to pursue an academic degree at the undergraduate or graduate level. In our second year, we would like to engage in additional activities to further our FLC’s professional development goals and objectives, but also start sharing our increased knowledge and understanding more with the campus community and to build more communication with international students on campus in order to explore ways of increasing their meaningful engagement and academic development on campus. We also hope to be more visible across SU campus as the TwINS FLC through activities such as a roundtable session with international students and community building social events.

For more information, please visit the TwINS LibGuide.

Facilitator: Bill Wolff, Art; James Hatley

The Ward Museum (WM) FLC will focus on broad and inclusive interdisciplinary attention to, and campus community interaction with, the Delmarva cultural landscape. The cultural landscape model maps neatly onto the WM’s recently revised mission “to create spaces and opportunities for learning about artistic traditions, community heritage, and connections to the natural environment” (updated in 2020).

Additionally, the WM has the potential to connect FLC members including faculty, staff and students with the public in ways that would not be possible if the FLC were confined to the SU main campus. The cultural landscape frame adds richness to this, focusing FLC members and WM liaisons through a lens that considers the dynamic nature of the world around us. Cultural landscapes are dynamic spaces where humans, the natural environment, and its non-human inhabitants interact with each other—affecting each other continually.

Delmarva is a unique cultural landscape with thanks to its vibrant marshes, forests, agricultural lands, and waterscapes - as well as its diverse cultural communities, from Native Americans (past and present), to the maritime and agricultural communities it is perhaps best known for, to its most recent immigrant communities.

Within the framework of Delmarva cultural landscapes, and interaction with and through the WM, faculty and staff will better develop responsive interdisciplinary and/or collaborative education particular to the place in which Salisbury University (“SU”) is situated. This will assist both SU and the WM in meeting their respective missions to respond to the needs and concerns of regional students and SU constituency.