Ithaca College Center for Faculty Excellence

The Center for Faculty Excellence Website is the repository for faculty development announcements and resources.

Faculty Development at Ithaca College

Faculty development is a process through which faculty enhance their teaching and research base in an effort to become a more effective teacher, scholar and contributor to academic and professional communities. Faculty development programs at Ithaca College are focused on providing interested faculty opportunities to engage in activities focused on professional development (interpreted broadly as teaching scholarship and service) and to interact with others with similar goals.

The primary goal of faculty development is to help faculty learn new ways to achieve excellence and to grow as faculty members. It is an ongoing process of understanding, learning, and growth. Faculty development includes education, collaboration, resources and support.

In addition to faculty and instructional development, faculty development concerns itself with culture change. Through educational programs and workshops faculty can learn the skills necessary to reach excellence in a changing academic environment.

Our Philosophy

To inspire, stimulate, and motivate faculty to go beyond usual routines, to help them understand student perspectives, to introduce varied approaches to teaching and learning and to integrate these in to their repertoire of knowledge and skills.

Upcoming:

Conversations about Service Learning – Integration, Mentoring, and Reflection in Service Learning Courses
Service-learning educational opportunities allow students to work with a community-based individual, group, or organization in a collaboration that also benefits the community partner. Core components of service learning courses include 1) integration of academic and disciplinary skills and knowledge with experience in real-world environments; 2) consistent faculty mentoring; and 3) opportunities for reflection.

In this interactive session, current IC faculty with experience in service learning pedagogy, and from a range of disciplines, will discuss effective techniques, outcomes, and lessons learned in the delivery of service learning courses. They will describe strategies for integrating service learning pedagogy into course design, techniques to enhance faculty mentoring of student experience, and methods for incorporating reflection in a variety of ways, including journaling, structured discussion, and post-experience analysis. This discussion session will help faculty identify ways to introduce service learning into courses that do not currently contain it as a component, and to support faculty who are already using service learning to incorporate it further into their work.  

Two opportunities to participate in this conversation:
Tuesday, April 15, 2014, 3:00 - 4:30 pm
facilitated by Pat Spencer, Writing, member of the Office of Civic Engagement Service Learning Design & Implementation Workgroup
(register here)
Monday, April 21, 2014, 10:00 - 11:30 am
facilitated by Elizabeth Bergman, Aging Studies, member of the H&S Experiential Learning Committee​
(register here)

Teaching Students the Art of Sustained Reading in the Age of Twitter
Thursday, April 17, 2014, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Center for Faculty Excellence, 316 Gannett Center
Helping students develop the habits and skills necessary for effective sustained reading is one of the biggest challenges in teaching the humanities in the 21st century.  This combination social event and discussion will address this challenge and draw upon the experiences of humanities faculty who have tried to address it directly (leaders of slow-read courses, for example).  Please come at 4:00 p.m. to enjoy refreshments followed at 4:30 p.m. by a roundtable discussion.  Co-sponsored by  the Humanities Working Group and the Center for Faculty Excellence.
(register here)

Sakai on Steroids
Monday, April 28, 2014, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Center for Faculty Excellence, 316 Gannett Center
Presenters: Lis Chabot, College Librarian; Paula Turkon, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies and Science; Mary Jo Watts, Instructional Technology Specialist, Technology and Instructional Support Services
The Library and ITS team up with a faculty member to build a Sakai site that supports student-faculty contact, develops interaction among students, utilizes active learning techniques, and provides links to targeted scholarly resources and  related tutorials.
(register here)

Adapting Teaching for Visually Impaired Students
Wednesday, April 30. 2014, 2:00- 3:30 p.m.
Center for Faculty Excellence, 316 Gannett Center
This workshop will address challenges and strategies of teaching and communicating with visually impaired students. Professors whose fall rosters include visually impaired students are especially encouraged to attend. Presentations by faculty will focus on making course materials and in-class exercises accessible. A representative from the Office of Student Disabilities will highlight resources available to faculty and staff. Student Tim Conners will speak about his experiences navigating courses and the campus in his first year at IC.
(register here)

Click here for additional upcoming events.