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Facilitator: Steven Binz, Physics; Chris Woodall, SU Libraries

This FLC is for faculty and staff from all across campus who are interested in the pedagogical capabilities of 3D technologies (including virtual reality, augmented reality, 3D printing, 3D scanning, use of virtual spaces for online courses (For example: https://altvr.com), and more). The FLC will continue to provide a means for discussion and knowledge sharing among FLC members as well as outreach to the wider SU community. Our goals are (1) to increase the awareness on campus of the capabilities of these technologies, (2) to ensure that all faculty are kept up to date on what equipment is already available on campus, and (3) to expand what is possible for the faculty already using these technologies in their classrooms (4) and to help those faculty interested in using the technology but lack the required knowledge.

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 ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥. There are innumerable contemporary rationale to consider, which include:

• The impact of public ethics scandals, such as the role of Psychology in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
• 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: 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: Shawn McEntee, Sociology and Lena Woodis, Chemistry

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) FLC focuses on best practices in evidence-based techniques, innovations, and processes to continuously improve student outcomes at SU. Principles of good practice of SoTL include: “(1) inquiry into student learning, (2) grounded in context, (3) methodologically sound, (4) conducted in partnership with students, and (5) appropriately public” (Felten 2013; https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.1.1.121). The SU SoTL FLC has engaged in these 5 principles of good practice, through the support and undertaking by Assessment Fellows. We will create definitions that enable High Impact Practices (HIPs) to be tracked throughout SU’s curriculum and to design approaches for quantifying HIPs across curricula as well as assessing the effectiveness of HIPs at SU. This FLC allows individuals to ask questions, solve problems, and perform research to determine the best practices - and the impact thereof - to continuously improve teaching, learning, and student outcomes at SU.

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.

Facilitator: Shruti Patel, History; G. Douglas Barrett, Communication; and Anthony Rojas, Chemistry

How do digital technologies like social media, computers, and dating apps—as well as knowledge technologies like libraries and governments—influence and inform human identity? In 2014, Facebook announced that it would allow its users to choose from 58 options for gender identification including female, male, transwoman, and transman, as well as genderqueer, non-binary, and “other.” Until recently, computers themselves were gendered—prior to the 1940s, that is, the term “computer” referred to a human, typically a woman, who performed calculations by hand. Dating apps allow users not only to specify gender and sexual preferences, but also discriminate based on race and ethnicity. In the sphere of ideas and governance, the contents of archives and information repositories are not only driven by the interests of scholars and university administrators but also respond to the societies they serve. This cross-cutting inquiry, we think, can and should be investigated through interdisciplinary engagement. While humanists possess an arsenal of methodologies and approaches to analyze such questions, scientists, engineers, and technologists represent key perspectives in this conversation. Through a series of readings and study group meetings, this FLC will introduce SU faculty across the sciences, social sciences and humanities, to science and technology studies (STS), digital humanities, media studies, and the post-humanities, and explore their uses in curricula and professional development. Participants will then be invited to apply knowledge gained from the FLC in both teaching and scholarly activities.

Facilitators: Alexander (Sandy) Pope, Secondary and Physical Education and PACE and Shawn McEntee, Sociology

Our work will explore the role of Civic Reflection in student achievement of a range of Student Learning Outcomes: Oral Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Inclusion & Diversity, Intellectual Curiosity, Intercultural Competence, and Personal Health & Wellness. We believe the opportunities to embed and assess civic reflection in these SLOs represent an important contribution to a unique ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ experience. Given the current Coronavirus Pandemic, we are developing ways to continue our work through virtual rather than in-person communication and considering what Civic Reflection might look like, and how it might function, in a virtual environment. The Center for Civic Reflection, residing at SU since March 19, 2019, is a national leader in dialogue and reflection. Civic Reflection uses readings, images and videos to engage people in deep, productive conversation about issues that impact their communities and work in the world.

Facilitators: Yuki Okubo, Psychology

The objective of this FLC is to increase research and writing productivity among full-time faculty members. With the institutional membership of National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD), faculty will engage in writing retreats four times a year, daily writing practice, and other professional development activities. We believe that developing a faculty culture on SU campus where we engage in periodic writing retreats will help sustain daily writing practice and more consistent productivity throughout the academic year. Providing SU full-time faculty the opportunity to apply to be part of writing retreat will allow more faculty to be involved with this FLC, rather than having a small number of us benefiting from it.

Facilitators: Mary Gunther, Biological Sciences

Faculty interested in partnering with the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Zoo to develop formal relationships and to determine programs with equal appeal to both ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ and the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Zoo. Past projects have included Zoo staff as guest lecturers in courses; development and installation of a “blood sleeve” by Bill Wolff (Art) to facilitate the taking of blood samples from the zoo’s Andean bears; Psychology professor Rhyannon Bemis’s Living Laboratory Project. Future projects proposed are development of an Honors class on wildlife trafficking in coordination with zoo staff; development and coordination of research projects between the zoo and the university from endocrine analysis to DNA sequencing; and development of building structures such as a jaguar feeder or otter slide.