Welcome

The Center for Faculty Development seeks to aid faculty in becoming excellent teachers and creative and fruitful contributors to their disciplines, in taking the initiative to secure resources and opportunities for professional growth, in seeking to know and love God, and in seeing their teaching, scholarship, creative work, and service as a Christian calling to the academic world.

2012 Newell Innovative Teaching Awards

May 10, 2012 - The 2012 Newell Innovative Teaching Awards were announced at Awards Day on May 4, 2012. The following faculty members were recognized:

Patricia Hamilton "Life Imitates Lit: A Road Trip to Cultural Understanding" (Winner)
Laurie Bagwell, Patsy Crihfield, Kelly Harden, Brad Harrell, C. Ben Mitchell, Jessica Suiter, Joy Thomason, Sherrie Turner, Robert Wamble, Cullen Williams, and Molly Wright "Using Ethics Scenarios in High-Fidelity Human Patient Simulation" (Honorable Mention)
Chris Blair, Ashley Blair, and Cam Tracy "COMUnion: Fostering Collaboration and Creativity in Interactive Media" (Honorable Mention)
Joshua Veltman "Real-Time Shared Document Editing in the Classroom" (Honorable Mention)
Sandra Brown "The Nurse's Day in Court" (Honorable Mention)

Related Web Resource: http://www.uu.edu/centers/faculty/programs/innovative/

In the Academy Dialogue Opportunities

March 30, 2012 -

Collegium II: A Faculty Seminar on Christ, Knowledge and Wisdom

“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects – with their Christianity latent.” - C.S. Lewis; Christian Apologetics

Collegium II serves as a committee assignment and meets during the third Monday committee hour.
It provides a co-facilitated, inter-disciplinary discussion for faculty to do the critical intellectual work of considering how the Christian faith influences teaching and scholarship. Each participating faculty member receives a $300.00 stipend for fulfilling the following objectives:

Explore and discuss the contributions of Christian scholars to their respective disciplines;
Attend monthly committee meetings and an extended mini retreat in January;
Create at least one of the following: an annotated bibliography, a literature review within your discipline, a list of critical questions or themes for further inquiry with their discipline, a revised course syllabus that demonstrates how the Christian faith influences course content, a conference paper, an article to be submitted for publication, or an application for a grant.

Summer Reading: George Marsden; The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Faculty Community for Significant Learning

The Faculty Community for Significant Learning (FCSL) also serves as a committee assignment and meets during the third Monday committee hour within a setting of interdisciplinary dialogue to assist faculty members in enhancing teaching effectiveness and increasing student learning.

Participants will receive a $300.00 stipend for the following objectives:

Write and/or revise a statement of teaching philosophy to serve as a foundation for other FCSL activities
Contribute to an online FCSL wiki to engage with other Community members outside the regular meeting times
Complete a teaching project; suggested projects include:
- (re)design a course or aspect of a course according to the principles articulated in one’s new statement of teaching philosophy
- deploy a new teaching methodology or technology in an actual course and share the results with the Community and possibly also with the broader academic community

Summer Reading: Rosebrough and Leverett, Transformational Teaching in the Information Age: Making How and Why We Teach Relevant to Students (Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2011),
Both communities are ultimately serve as a means of equipping, preparing, and invigorating faculty to fulfill their current interests and professional development goals.

Space is limited, so please contact Nan Thomas (5065) if you are interested in participating.

From The Covenant Prayer of John Wesley (1703–1791)

March 13, 2012 -

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.