FC Progress Reports
Faculty Collaboratives
Winter/Spring 2014-2015
Please complete and send to Susan Albertine at by the following dates:
January 30th; March 27th; April 24th; May 29th; June 26th
Please indicate in your email if we may post your report to the public Toolkit.
State/Collaborative:
Date submitted:
Submitted by:
Progress toward goals for current reporting period:
Completed / LEAP Fellows and project leads met on June 16 with a very full agenda focused on discussion of:1) Fellow Draft Work Plans;
2) Innovation Hub
3) AAC&U Integrative Learning Institute
4) September Faculty Collaboratives Conference
Progress was made in each area, with specific follow-up needed for each, as delineated below.
Completed / Theme, goals, venue and date for systemwide FC conference in September 2015 have been identified. The conference title is “Faculty Collaboratives: Essential Learning Outcomes for the Disciplines and Interdisciplines,” and will be held in Madison on September 24-25. “Save the Date” announcements were sent to provosts and other constituent groups who work with faculty and IAS.
Underway / FC Conference planning: agenda is undergoing some major revision to make the conference more inviting to weary and wary faculty (see challenge below). While we have secured the wonderful participation of Dan Mc Inerney and Susan Albertine, we are still looking for additional presenters and determining the workshops and sessions that will be most useful to faculty. Need to also identify appropriate role for LEAP Fellows at conference. The conference will include a lot of team time and discipline/interdiscipline-based affinity group time. Need to firm up plans for securing commitment of faculty and IAS over summer for late September conference, a challenge since they are not on contract and will not be until late August.
Underway / Hub Director Peggy James and I have realized that we need to give more direction to the LEAP Fellows work plans for their FC research and practice areas, and we need to raise the bar on our expectations for rigor. We will be sending the Fellows an assignment, which asks them to begin delving more deeply into the proficiency initiatives they have chosen to focus on, and with SoTL as a research frame. We know this will be iterative and we also realize we need to push them so we can all stay focused and productive.
Peggy and I talk on the phone weekly and try to have in-person meetings monthly, which has been wonderfully collaborative and productive, and which keeps the project moving forward.
Underway / Hub Director and LEAP Fellows identified the major goals for their work at the Integrative Learning Institute in July. They will focus on developing three “templates,” critical to the work of the project: one on equity, one on signature work, and one on the Hub. Hub Director Peggy James has drafted the institute poster and will refine with input from the Fellows. We’re very grateful for the support of AAC&U that enables our project leads to attend the institute!
Underway / Peggy James and FC colleague Jim Robinson have written up a draft work proposal for the Innovation Hub, including a timeline for completing its initial set-up and content population through February 2016. Their vision is for a dynamic site whose architecture includes a welcome room or foyer, a searchable database/repository focused on the proficiency initiatives, and a social room for exchanges and dialogue.
Underway / Peggy is working with the other state Hub Directors to pilot ProSolo as a communication platform for project leads/participants.
Underway / Follow-up from the LEAP Wisconsin Steering Committee meeting on May 27 has been delayed but the committee co-chairs (Carleen Vande Zande and Rebecca Karoff) will be meeting on July 1 to synthesize the meeting outcomes into the assessment plan, along with developing assignments for committee members and other key constituent groups to whom we are reaching out for help with actual data collection and analysis. Co-chairs will also provide a report outline and a “genealogy” timeline template to institutional committee members so they can represent the specific LEAP work and activities for their campuses. This will help meet the goal to tell the LEAP story through systemwide evidence and customizable institutional evidence.
Two constituent groups are meeting this summer to help advance the assessment plan and data collection: the UW System Assessment Coordinators (unsung heroes) are meeting on July 21, and SAGLA (the Systemwide Advisory Group on the Liberal Arts) is meeting on July 30. The Assessment Coordinators, in particular, will be valuable contributors to the overall LEAP assessment effort.
Please describe any current challenges you are facing in meeting your FC Project goals:
· Actions of the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee have created turmoil, not only because of the deep budget cuts but also because of statutory changes to tenure, shared governance, and layoff procedures.· The UW System President and Board of Regents have engineered a huge change in the social compact between the University and the state, one which displaces the central focus on educating students through a strong public higher education system that meets the needs of citizens of the state, to a focus on a new partnership with the Legislature and Governor to position the University to meet their needs and direction.
· Faculty and staff morale is as low as I’ve ever seen it and we are all feeling it. This has implications for how we plan our FC conference in September. We can’t make it seem like we are pushing new initiatives and work on people, and—as we all know—the proficiency initiatives have the tendency to make people feel that way. We need to find ways to motivate the faculty who come, honor their work and dedication to student learning, and get them to reclaim their energy for providing high quality, outcomes-based student learning environments to their students.
· It is clear that the LEAP Wisconsin Assessment project will always suffer from people not having enough time so we need to be both diligent and realistic about what we can accomplish by December when we have committed to having the report done.
Suggestions or Questions for AAC&U FC Staff:
I appreciate, as always, the support and community you provide!I’ll send along materials to the FC Toolkit as I complete them, i.e., the Fellows assignments, the preliminary conference agenda, etc.
Please update your goals for the next reporting period:
LEAP Fellow Work Plans will be in good shape and Fellows will be embarked on their SoTL research into their chosen proficiency initiatives. Their work will begin populating the Hub.Integrative Learning Institute Templates for Equity, Signature Work and the Hub will be completed and placed in Hub and also used at the September conference.
Innovation Hub will either be mocked-up, wire-framed, or built with its initial architecture in place.
FC Conference: By August 1, conference agenda will be set with a good number of workshops and presenters lined up; invitations and directions to provosts and others for identifying faculty teams and participants will be mailed out. By August 24, campus teams and other participants will be registered.
LEAP Wisconsin Assessment report outline, definitions, timeline, “genealogy” templates will be drafted. Data collection and analysis will be underway at every UW, with clear roles for Steering Committee members, Assessment Coordinators, and SAGLA members for the roles they will play in gathering data and telling the story of LEAP in Wisconsin.
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