Fall Opportunities at CAE: Teaching and Writing in Community

Dear colleagues,

As ever, we are gratified to see all of your careful planning take flight in this, the first week of classes. We’ve seen many of you at our Back-to-School workshops or syllabus and tech drop-in sessions, and hope to see many more of you in the coming weeks. We write now with three opportunities for engagement this fall, as CAE seeks to support the ongoing innovation of your teaching and writing, in ways that embrace the communities of practice that so vitally feed both. Consider joining us for one or more of the following opportunities:

Writing Accountability Groups (WAG): Writing accountability groups are small groups that form to meet regularly in order to keep all participants engaged in creative activities, research, scholarly, and artistic production despite the busyness of the year. Many groups are ongoing, and often include members from varied disciplines and approaches. The CAE supports these groups simply by connecting small numbers of faculty (usually three or four) with one another, and checking in now and then with those members. The structure, duration, and frequency is up to the members of the group. Let us know if you would like to be connected with a writing group, or if you have an existing writing accountability group that could use a new member.

Facilitated Teaching Circles:  As with the writing accountability groups, teaching circles can take several forms but share a commitment to engaging regularly in conversations about our teaching. A summer teaching circle (the members of whom will continue in the fall) met weekly to discuss emerging issues in teaching, and was facilitated by Center Director Jay Rozgonyi. If you have an interest in joining a facilitated group, let us know. If you would like to engage in some Peer Review of Teaching (PROT), in which you and a colleague observe and discuss each other’s classes, let us know that, too, and we will aim to match colleagues across disciplines and schools.

Anti-Racist Syllabus Design Faculty Learning Community (FLC):  Join us for a faculty learning community focused on revising or creating a syllabus that reflects key principles of anti-racist course design. During our monthly meetings, you’ll work on revising or drafting specific components of your syllabus to create a more inviting and inclusive syllabus. There will be opportunities to share your ideas and challenges with peers and participate in conversation as we collectively engage in this important work.

In order to get these groups started and underway, please email us at cae@fairfield.edu specifying your preferred groups by Friday, September 17.

Best,

The CAE Team


For more information, contact Center for Academic Excellence / x3275 / cae@fairfield.edu