New Faculty Orientation (NFO)
Date: Thursday, August 29, 2019 (Day 1 of 2)
Time: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: upper-level of the dining hall

Date: Friday, August 30, 2019 (Day 2 of 2)
Time: 11:15 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Location: Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room

Scholarly Creative Endeavors (SCE) Fall 2019

• Mondays from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
• Tuesdays from noon - 1 p.m.
• Wednesdays from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
• Thursdays from noon - 1 p.m.

Faculty Women of Color Coaching Group
Led by: Kelly Mack, PhD from Kardia Group

Being faculty women of color on a predominantly white and male campus can impact many aspects of the faculty experience. Invisible labor, unconscious bias, tokenism, skewed student evaluations and expectations, and other challenges can threaten both satisfaction and success. This faculty women of color coaching group is an opportunity to join with faculty of color colleagues and a coach experienced with the realities of race, ethnicity, and gender in academic careers to provide support, resources, and perspective. Specific topic emphasis will be determined by participant experience. For more information, contact Kristie Ford at kford@skidmore.edu.

Community Engaged Course Design Institute
Date: Friday, September 13
Location: Surrey Inn

Registration for the event runs from 8:30 to 9:00 a.m. with breakfast provided. The day is filled with great opportunities to share ideas about civic engagement pedagogy. It promises to an excellent chance to work with other faculty members from Skidmore and other institutions, explore innovative ways to design courses, and tap into a vibrant and growing network of scholars and teachers. The workshop is ideal for any of you who are interested in designing Applied Civic Engagement or Bridge Experience courses with a community engagement element. There is no cost to attend, breakfast and lunch will be served. For more information please contact: Ali Schaeffing email: schaea@sage.edu or Ruth Kassel email: rkassel@siena.edu. RSVP: https://forms.gle/K5K5cgr4VBq4LUcx5

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 9/19, 10/3, 10/17, 10/31, 11/7, 11/21, 12/5 (Thursdays)
Time: 4:15 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

Pedagogy Workshops with Dr. Saran Stewart
Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Time: noted below
Location: noted below, RSVP is required

Saran Stewart, PhD is a senior lecturer of Comparative Higher Education and Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. At the core of her research, Dr. Stewart’s research examines issues in comparative education, decolonizing methodologies, postcolonial theories, critical/inclusive pedagogy and access and equity issues in higher education. She is co-editor of the book, Race, Equity and the Learning Environment: The Global Relevance of Critical and Inclusive Pedagogies in Higher Education (Stylus) and editor of the 2019 forthcoming book, Decolonizing Qualitative Methodologies for and by the Caribbean (Information Age Publishing).

1) Supporting First Generation Students Workshop from 12-2 p.m. (Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room) RSVP required.

Equal access to learning requires that faculty examine how classroom behaviors reinforce differential educational outcomes among students, especially first generation students. Through an interactive session, she will explore with faculty the influence of classroom teaching on the educational outcomes of first generation students, with a particular focus on those who identify as racially minoritized.

2) STEM and Inclusive Excellence Workshop from 5-7 p.m. (upper-level of the dining hall) RSVP required.

This interactive session aims to expose participants to pedagogical approaches that link inclusion to teaching excellence in STEM. Specifically, the goals of this session are to help participants: 1) understand the influence of classroom teaching on the educational outcomes of racially minoritized students in STEM programs; 2) To engage in dialogue of faculty experiences while centering intersectionality in the classroom; and 3) To co-construct teaching strategies that promote inclusive learning environments.

theSpring Ally Accessibility Workshop with Aaron Kendall
Date: Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Time: noon-1:30 p.m.
Location: Weller Room

theSpring Ally is a plugin to our LMS that helps instructors make their digital course content more accessible to students, and build a more inclusive learning environment. This tool makes it easier for instructors to understand potential accessibility limitations with uploaded documents and images, as well as provide solutions to make them more accessible. It also automatically generates alternative accessible formats for students, including mp3, ePub, and tagged PDF. In this workshop we will introduce the concept of digital accessibility and explore common barriers to accessibility with digital course content. Participants will explore the alternative versions generated by Ally, and learn how they affect overall course accessibility. Participants will also learn to incorporate the feedback that Ally provides into best practices when creating and modifying commonly used files such as Microsoft Word documents and PDFs.

STEM inclusiveness group
Coordinator: Becky Trousil
Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Time: 1:15-2:15 pm
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 10/3, 10/17, 10/31, 11/7, 11/21, 12/5 (Thursdays)
Time: 4:15 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

Non-Tenure-Track (NTT) Faculty Meeting
Date: Friday, Oct. 11, 2019
Time: 3:30 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, Weller Room (212)

Please join your non-tenure-track (NTT) faculty colleagues for an open discussion of NTT-specific issues and advocacy at Skidmore. This event is being organized by Peter Murray and co-sponsored by the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning (CLTL).

For those who would find it helpful, Dominique Vuvan (Psychology) and Casey Schofield (Psychology) have offered to provide onsite child watch, with games and art supplies, during the meeting. Please note: child watch for this event is an informal, private arrangement, and it is *not* being provided by Skidmore College. If you anticipate needing child watch during the meeting, please RSVP to Pete Murray (pmurray@skidmore.edu) by Thursday, October 10.

Faculty Interest Group – Evaluation of Teaching
Date:  Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Time:  4 pm
Location:  Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

Accurately evaluating our teaching is important to Skidmore as an institution, and also to the faculty in helping us develop as teachers with long and productive careers at the College. Recent work in both the greater academy and at Skidmore has called into question the fairness and validity of teaching evaluations. The College is now considering whether to change how we evaluate teaching, how we can best help our colleagues improve as teachers, and how (and whether) those evaluations should be used in hiring, promotion, tenure and other high-stakes personnel decisions.  Tenured, untenured, and non-tenure track faculty are invited to join us at an organizing meeting for a faculty interest group on best practices in the design, administration and use of student and peer evaluations of teaching.

Pedagogy Workshops with Dr. Barbara Jacoby
Date: Tuesday, Wednesday October 22 and 23, 2019
Time: see below
Location: upper level of the dining hall 

Dr. Barbara Jacoby is a Senior Consultant at the Do Good institute (School of Public Policy, University of Maryland) and a Higher Education Consultant in private practice. Her areas of focus include service-learning, civic and community engagement, curriculum development, high-impact educational practices, and experiential learning inside and outside the classroom. She will offer a workshop specially designed to assist faculty in developing courses for our new Bridge Experience requirement, especially the practice/application component. The workshop will be offered at two separate times:

• Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2-4 p.m.
• Wednesday, Oct. 23, 9-11 a.m.

Invitation with request for RSVP will be forthcoming. 

Talking About Race in Children's Media
Led by: Dr. Kristie A. Ford

Date: Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Clifton Park Halfmoon Public Library, 475 Moe Road, Clifton Park NY 12065

Join us for a interactive workshop that will examine depictions of race in chldren's media. Registration required, adults and teens 14+ are welcome. Website: www.cphlibrary.org

Faculty Women of Color Coaching Group.
Led by: Kelly Mack, PhD from Kardia Group

Dates: October 23, November 6, and November 20 (all Wednesdays)
Time: 7:30-9 p.m.
Location: TBA

Being faculty women of color on a predominantly white and male campus can impact many aspects of the faculty experience. Invisible labor, unconscious bias, tokenism, skewed student evaluations and expectations, and other challenges can threaten both satisfaction and success. This faculty women of color coaching group is an opportunity to join with faculty of color colleagues and a coach experienced with the realities of race, ethnicity, and gender in academic careers to provide support, resources, and perspective. Specific topic emphasis will be determined by participant experience. For more information, contact TBD

Dr. Lorre Wolf   Residency
Date: Friday, October 25, 2019
Time: 12-2 p.m.
Location: Tang Teaching Museum, Payne Room, RSVP is required

Dr. Lorre Wolf, Director of Disability and Access Services at Boston University, will be leading a lunch pedagogy workshop. Along with Dr. Jane Thierfeld Brown, Dr. Wolfe developed a model of service delivery for college students entitled “Strategic Education for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.” The pedagogy workshop will discuss autism and some symptoms; strategies for classroom management; reasonable accommodations and access versus eligibility. There will be time for questions about specific issues.

Dr. Wolf holds a doctorate in basic and applied neuropsychology from the City University of New York and has over 35 years of experience working with children, adolescents and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. She has taught experimental psychology, assessment, and neuropsychology at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Wolf has published and presented nationally and internationally on psychiatric, attention, learning and autism spectrum disorders. She holds faculty appointments in psychiatry and in rehabilitation sciences at Boston University. She was a co-editor of Adult Attention Deficit Disorders: Brain Mechanisms and Life Outcomes (2001, New York Academy of Sciences), is the senior co-editor of Learning Disorders in Adults: Contemporary Issues (Psychology Press, 2008), and co-authored Students with Asperger Syndrome: A Guide for College Personnel (Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2009; Japanese translation, 2017) and Students on the Spectrum: A College Guide for Parents (AAPC, 2011). Dr. Wolf’s interests include the neuropsychology of self-regulation and brain models of risk-taking behavior in young adults. Along with Dr. Jane Thierfeld Brown, she developed a model of service delivery for college students entitled “Strategic Education for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders.” Her extracurricular interests include adventure travel, scuba diving and her dogs.

STEM inclusiveness group: overview of Active Learning Methods
Coordinators: Elaine Larson and Erika Schielke
Date: Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Time: 1:15-2:15 pm
Location:  Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

Discuss a variety of active learning methodologies and compare/contrast them.

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 11/7, 11/21, 12/5 (Thursdays)
Time: 4:15 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

ConnectMORE, facilitated by Leya Moore, Ph.D. and Julia Routbort, Ph.D.
Date: Friday, November 15, 2019
Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

Designed to help faculty members respond empathically and effectively to students experiencing moments of crisis, distress and or mental health challenges. The 90 minute workshop is interactive and experiential. We’ll focus on enhancing listening, asking and responding skills and on making sure you know about campus resources (and know how to access them). We’ll also talk about how to set limits consistently and empathically in ways that fit your pedagogy and style. You’ll get some ConnectMORE swag and a sticker you can choose to display your support for student mental health. If you have questions about the workshop, please contact jroutbor@skidmore.edu or lmoore2@skidmore.edu

Please RSVP to kford@skidmore.edu by November 11.

STEM inclusiveness group: Active Learning in Practice at Skidmore
Coordinator: Jennifer Cholnoky
Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Time: 1:15-2:15 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

Group discussion among faculty about what has worked (and hasn’t) in their attempts engage students in active learning. Discuss how student perceptions that they learn less in such environments (despite evidence to the contrary) impacts faculty efforts

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: Thursday, December 5, 2019
Time: 4:15 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

Scholarly and Creative Endeavors (SCE) Winter Camp

Are you interested in continuing your scholarship and/or creative projects over winter break, with the support of your colleagues?  If so, consider joining the Scholarly and Creative Endeavors (SCE) Winter Camp.  

Here is the structure: you agree to work on your projects in the mornings and meet for discussion and accountability from noon-1 p.m. in the Weller Room (Library 212). Ruth McAdams will lead the group every day from January 13-17, 2020. Please note: lunch tickets will NOT be provided in January; please bring a brown-bag lunch to the Weller Room.

The Spring SCE groups will resume the week of Monday, Jan. 27. Here is that schedule:

• Emily Marcason-Tolmie and Liz Tybush
  Mondays at 12:30 pm
• Ruth McAdams
  Tuesdays at 12 noon
• Jeremy Wachter
  Thursdays at 12 noon
• Madushi Raththagala
  Fridays at 12 noon

Dr. Jeanne Hey: Department Chairs and Program Directors Workshop
Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Time: TBA
Location: TBA

Jeanne A.K. Hey served as Dean of the College of Arts at the University of New England in Biddeford, ME from 2011 to 2019. She previously served as the Director of International Studies and Professor of Political Science at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bucknell University, she earned a PhD in political science from The Ohio State University. She has conducted research and taught university courses in Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe.

Her consulting work includes leading professional development seminars, workshops and one-on-one mentoring sessions in the areas of leadership development, the unique challenges of academic leadership, working with faculty, strategic planning and more.

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 1/27, 2/10, 2/24, 3/16, 3/30, 4/13, 4/27 (Mondays)
Time: 4-5:30 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

The CNY Humanities Corridor invites applications for a Summer 2020 Writing Retreat

• Application deadline is January 31, 2020; Awardees will be notified in late February, 2020
• Dates: July 15-18, 2020 (arrive mid-day July 15; depart mid-day July 18)
  Location: Minnowbrook Conference Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY (see photo gallery)
• Award: 3 nights’ lodging, meals, tuition (attendance for the retreat duration is required).
  To download a copy of this CFP, please do so here.

Michelle Boyd, PhD – an award-winning scholar, writing coach, and founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats – will lead two full-day sessions focused on sustainable, fulfilling writing practices. Ample time will be dedicated to writing during the retreat: there will also be breaks built in to each day to enjoy the Adirondack setting and Minnowbrook’s amenities.

July 16, How to Identify and Move Past Writing Obstacles: Scholars often confront barriers in their writing and research that are disruptive, nebulous, and difficult to address using standard writing accountability strategies. This retreat day will provide participants with simple techniques to address impediments, including internal barriers/thoughts/feelings, that may keep us from writing. Participants will uncover processes for surpassing barriers and move from having ideas in their head to putting words on a page.

July 17th: Ready, Set, Flow: How to Make the Most of Your Writing Time. As a faculty member, do you sometimes feel “stuck” when you sit down to write, or simply distracted by a million other responsibilities? Given our numerous commitments as scholars, educators, and administrators, faculty can feel beleaguered by wider responsibilities and, in turn, be overwhelmed when sitting down to write. This retreat day will offer two key skills: how to quickly clarify what needs to be done in any given writing session; and how to cultivate the intrinsic motivation that is pivotal to regular writing.

By the close of the retreat, you will have networked with scholars from across the Corridor, mapped out your particular writing process, identified patterns that disrupt it, and developed a plan to move past those disruptors. You also will have made meaningful, measurable progress on your writing and have a clear strategy for quickly deciding what to focus on every time you sit down to write—so you can make the most of any writing session, no matter how short or long.

Who is eligible? Tenure-line faculty in the Humanities, broadly defined, at Cornell University, Syracuse University, the University of Rochester, or a NY6 Liberal Arts Consortium institution (Colgate University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Skidmore College, St. Lawrence University, Union College).

Especially encouraged to apply are:

Tenured faculty, including mid-career faculty (Associate Professor, recently tenured or in rank for a while) and/or senior faculty (Associate or Full Professor). Faculty who currently or historically have been in service-heavy administrative roles; faculty of color, LGBTQ faculty, women faculty, and/or first-generation faculty.

Applicants should be interested in: participating in a supportive professional network and cross-disciplinary scholarly community, exploring new tools and writing strategies, tackling writing obstacles and identifying research momentum strategies, developing a particular writing/research project—or piece of a larger project—with the opportunity (to receive and to give) peer feedback. In the application, you will be asked to provide some details about your writing project and goals.

By the end of this retreat, each participant will: have made significant, measurable progress on their writing project, understand key barriers to effective writing and how they can impede writing and research momentum, have implemented at least one strategy for addressing such barriers, be able to integrate that strategy into their daily writing practice.

Apply Now

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 2/10, 2/24, 3/16, 3/30, 4/13, 4/27 (Mondays)
Time: 4-5:30 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

Book discussion of Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist (Penguin; Random House, 2019), named one of the best books of 2019 by Time, The Washington Post, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Two sessions of informal discussions are available as follows:

Dates: Thursday, Feb. 13 and Friday, Feb. 21
Time: noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Weller Room 212 in the Scribner Library
 
The CLTL will provide snacks and drinks.
 
The CTLT has purchased 25 copies of the book to distribute to people who commit to joining one of the discussion groups (first-come first-served). To request a copy of the book and sign up for one of the discussion groups/days please email, Katie Hauser (khauser@skidmore.edu).

Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times bestselling author and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. A professor of history and international relations and a frequent public speaker, Kendi is a columnist at The Atlantic. He is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and The Black Campus Movement, which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize.
 
For more information about the loosely-organized group committed to creating a more inclusive Skidmore, after logging into Skidmore Blogs please go to “About” on https://academics.skidmore.edu/blogs/inclusive-skidmore/about/.

Kim Frederick, Katie Hauser, Michael Marx, Kelly Sheppard

Teaching and Learning for ALL Students: Building Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into Classrooms, Course Material and Assessment Methods
Date: February 14, 2020
Time: 12-2 p.m.
Location: Tang Teaching Museum, Payne room
RSVP required

Nationally, students with disabilities represent 14% of college students and last year at Skidmore represented 15% of the student body. In order to provide access to the learning environment, common practice is to provide retrofit accommodations for individuals based on the disability. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the practice of designing teaching methodologies, curricular decisions, and assessment strategies to minimize the need for accommodations. Disability is often left out of conversations about diversity and inclusion however,  the principles of UDL expands notions of inclusion and meets with diverse learning needs of all students.

The presentation will provide an overview of the principles of Universal Design and will include examples of ways in which we may make our classrooms, course materials, and assessment methods accessible and usable by all. The presentation will include time for discussion. Please bring with you questions you may have about student accommodations and how to make your classrooms, course materials, and assessment methods accessible for all.

Dr. Susan. M. Pliner is the Dean for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, and Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.  In addition, she holds an Assistant Professor position in the Education Department and teaches in the Social Justice Studies Program.

Susan has a B.A. in Secondary Social Studies Education, a M.Ed. in Special Education, a CAGS in Social Justice Education, and an Ed.D. in Human Development.  Her areas of specialty include; teaching and learning, intersectional pedagogy, multicultural and social justice education; universal instructional design; disability studies; and special education.

Cornell University MOOC: Teaching & Learning in the Diverse Classroom

Date: February 17 – March 23, 2020
Location: Online at: edX.org
Registration is now open
 
The course is for anyone with teaching responsibilities, at any level of diversity expertise. Participants will explore strategies for inclusive course design, social identity and self-reflection, and pedagogical practices that effectively support student engagement and belongingness across difference. This video provides a brief introduction to the course. Instructors can take the course individually or as cohorts from any institution.

Kimberly Van Orman, pedagogy consultant based at SUNY Albany, will be offering the following workshop:

"Working with Diverse Student Perspectives: When Discussions Get Difficult"

Thoughtful intellectual discussions are at the heart of learning in higher education, but in the current political and social moment many students struggle to manage their own and others' reactions when topics like immigration, trans rights, or gun policy become part of the discussion. Even when controversy is a planned part of the course, faculty may worry about discussions running away from them and need tools to help them lead the discussion productively. This session provides a framework for honoring students' emotional responses and strategies for managing difficult discussions, so that faculty can teach students how to slow down and learn from controversy.

In order to capture as many interested faculty as possible, this workshop will be offered at two different times on Tuesday, February 25 in the upper d-hall:

•    9:30-11:30 a.m.
•    2:30-4:30 p.m.

Please rsvp to Brooke Toma by Friday, Feb. 14. This event is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is co-sponsored by the CLTL.

Kimberly Van Orman in an instructional consultant with the Institute for Teaching, Learning and Academic Leadership at the University at Albany, focusing on effective course design, critical thinking, fostering student engagement and helping students with deep learning practices, including Team-Based Learning (TBL). Dr. Van Orman has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University at Albany and has taught philosophy at institutions including the University at Albany, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution, Siena College and Bennington College.

She has worked in faculty and graduate student professional development for over ten years.

Brief piece on Van Orman in the online Chronicle.


theSpring Ally Workshop with Aaron Kendall
Date: February 26, 2020
Time: noon-1:30 p.m.
Location: Weller Room

IMPORTANT NOTE: theSpring Ally is a standalone tool that works with most Learning Management Systems (LMS). Regardless of any potential future LMS migration (to Brightspace for example), we will continue to maintain our theSpring Ally license.

theSpring Ally is a plugin to our LMS that helps instructors make their digital course content more accessible to students, and build a more inclusive learning environment. This tool makes it easier for instructors to understand potential accessibility limitations with uploaded documents and images, as well as provide solutions to make them more accessible. It also automatically generates alternative accessible formats for students, including mp3, ePub, and tagged PDF.
 
In this workshop we will introduce the concept of digital accessibility and explore common barriers to accessibility with digital course content. Participants will explore the alternative
versions generated by Ally, and learn how they affect overall course accessibility. Participants will also learn to incorporate the feedback that Ally provides into best practices when creating
and modifying commonly used files such as Microsoft Word documents and PDFs.

 

Evaluation of Teaching FIG
Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Time: 4-5:30 p.m.
Location: Weller Room (Scribner Library 212)

Continuing our work towards developing methods for more fairly and accurately evaluating our teaching, we will hear from Steve Ives on the work CEPP is doing on teaching evaluation this year, and discuss ways of improving evaluation of teaching. We will also discuss ways in which evaluation of teaching can contribute to broad institutional goals of increasing inclusive excellence at Skidmore. Tenure, untenured, and non-tenure track faculty are invited to join us at an organizing meeting for a faculty interest group on best practices in the design, administration and use of student and peer evaluations of teaching.

CONNECTMORE
Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Time: 3-4:30 p.m.
Location: Weller Room (Scribner Library 212)

Have you ever worried about how best to help a student in crisis? How about a student who appears to be having a panic attack during an exam? Or a student who lets you know they are going home for two weeks because a sibling is seriously ill?
 
If you have questions about the workshop, please contact Julia Routbort at or Leya Moore.

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 3/16, 3/30, 4/13, 4/27 (Mondays)
Time: 4:15 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.

Power, Justice and Identity at the Tang

RSVP required
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Time: 12:15-1:15 p.m.
Location: Payne Room, Tang Teaching Museum

A conversation among faculty and museum staff about how the Tang can support Bridge Experience courses.  There are many ways in which students can explore issues of power, justice, and identity through Tang collections and exhibitions. Possibilities include not only studying artists and artworks, but also curating or making interventions in exhibitions, organizing public events, participating in community outreach, and more.  Lunch will be provided.

Restoring Hope and Choice in an Academic Career

Date: next course begins week of March 23, 2020
Register here

Do you find yourself opting out? Of meetings, email, relationships, opportunities… or even your future as an academic?

If so, you’re not alone. Overwhelm, by its nature, makes us shut down. We focus on putting one foot in front of the other just to get through – and often lose track of where we meant to go in the first place.

Being an academic is a “meta-profession,” requiring mastery and high levels of responsibility in multiple professions at once. As such, an academic career is a recipe for overwhelm. The rising pressures of our institutions and society turn up the heat even further.

This 8-week course for faculty and academic leaders provides awareness, community, and concrete advice for engaging an academic career in new ways based on the book The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky.

Weekly online sessions will include short didactic presentations, small group discussions with other faculty, weekly quizzes, and Q&A. Each session will be offered three times – attend whichever meeting time works for you that week. Additionally, participants will have access to recorded versions of the didactic presentations and an online forum where discussion can continue at will.

The Wonderful Mess of Streaming
Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Time: 3-4 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, Weller Room # 212

While the rise of streaming video has meant a fabulous influx of new content on easily accessible platforms, it has also created complications on how these films can be used by faculty in their courses.  Librarians Dung-Lan Chen, John Cosgrove, and Johanna MacKay will talk about the current issues arising from streaming in regards to the changing of formats, accessibility of streaming, and the possibility of disappearing content. We hope to provide ample time to have group discussion to talk about specific scenarios and answer questions.

Civic engagement pedagogy workshop 
Date: March 27, 2020
Time: 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, Weller Room # 212

 

Science Faculty Discussion Group
Date: 4/13, 4/27 (Mondays)
Time: 4-5:30 p.m.
Location: Scribner Library, the Weller Room (212)

The Science Faculty Discussion Group provides an informal opportunity for faculty to get together and learn about the research each of us are doing and discover potential avenues for collaboration in both research and teaching.

Anyone interested is welcome to attend, and we especially encourage people who are new to the campus to come and connect with colleagues.
 

 

SCE Work Group

Ruth McAdams and Jeremy Wachter have kindly offered to co-lead a virtual group starting Wednesday, May 20 at noon.

If you are interested in participating, please contact them directly for the Zoom link.

The CNY Humanities Corridor: Summer 2020 Writing Retreat

Dates: July 15-18, 2020 (arrive mid-day July 15; depart mid-day July 18)
Location: Minnowbrook Conference Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY

Award: 3 nights’ lodging, meals, tuition (attendance for the retreat duration is required).

Michelle Boyd, PhD – an award-winning scholar, writing coach, and founder of InkWell Academic Writing Retreats – will lead two full-day sessions focused on sustainable, fulfilling writing practices. Ample time will be dedicated to writing during the retreat: there will also be breaks built in to each day to enjoy the Adirondack setting and Minnowbrook’s amenities.

July 16th: How to Identify and Move Past Writing Obstacles. Scholars often confront barriers in their writing and research that are disruptive, nebulous, and difficult to address using standard writing accountability strategies. This retreat day will provide participants with simple techniques to address impediments, including internal barriers/thoughts/feelings, that may keep us from writing. Participants will uncover processes for surpassing barriers and move from having ideas in their head to putting words on a page.

July 17th, Ready, Set, Flow: How to Make the Most of Your Writing Time. As a faculty member, do you sometimes feel “stuck” when you sit down to write, or simply distracted by a million other responsibilities? Given our numerous commitments as scholars, educators, and administrators, faculty can feel beleaguered by wider responsibilities and, in turn, be overwhelmed when sitting down to write. This retreat day will offer two key skills: how to quickly clarify what needs to be done in any given writing session; and how to cultivate the intrinsic motivation that is pivotal to regular writing.

By the close of the retreat, you will have networked with scholars from across the Corridor, mapped out your particular writing process, identified patterns that disrupt it, and developed a plan to move past those disruptors. You also will have made meaningful, measurable progress on your writing and have a clear strategy for quickly deciding what to focus on every time you sit down to write—so you can make the most of any writing session, no matter how short or long.

Who is eligible? Tenure-line faculty in the Humanities, broadly defined, at Cornell University, Syracuse University, the University of Rochester, or a NY6 Liberal Arts Consortium institution (Colgate University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Skidmore College, St. Lawrence University, Union College).

By the end of this retreat, each participant will:
have made significant, measurable progress on their writing project, understand key barriers to effective writing and how they can impede writing and research momentum, have implemented at least one strategy for addressing such barriers, be able to integrate that strategy into their daily writing practice.

New Faculty Orientation

Date: September 3-4, 2020
Time: TBA
Location: TBA