Author: Jane Bise

One of the most valuable moments in a semester comes when you pause and ask students how things are going. Mid-semester feedback provides real-time insight into what’s working well and where small adjustments could make a significant difference. Our facilitated course assessment service makes this process simple and supportive: students share feedback in a structured way, you receive a clear summary of their perspectives, and you can respond while there’s still plenty of time left in the semester. It’s a low-stakes, high-reward way to strengthen your teaching and your students’ learning.

Keep reading here.

If you happen to be counting, we’ve just hit week 6 of the semester–and we’re closing in on midterm (already!). While you’re likely starting to feel a bit in the weeds as the midterm assignments begin to roll in, you may have also been inspired by last Friday’s mini-symposium to find ways to keep your scholarly agenda moving forward even in the heat of the semester. If so, I hope you’ll join our October UR Writing Challenge, which starts this Wednesday. For the entire month of October, we’ll support each other as we integrate regular writing practice into our busy semester. There will be three writing retreats (October 1, 10, and 30) during the month of the Challenge, and some exciting prizes for participants.

Even if you don’t have time for the Writing Challenge this semester, please do consider joining us for a retreat, exploring the on-campus writing resources to help support your scholarship, or visiting the community pages of the NCFDD for additional support. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me (kmaynard@richmond.edu) for a chat!

See what else is going on here.

I thought this week it would be interesting to see Week 5 from a student’s perspective. So I asked Sarah Symons, our Student Communications and Events Assistant, how she was feeling at this point in the semester. Sarah is a double major in Leadership Studies and Political Science and has worked with us since 2023. Here’s what she had to say…

The first quarter of the semester has already come to a close! The initial weeks of school were filled with cheerful hellos to friends I hadn’t seen since May, swapping stories from summer jobs and trips. If you’re anything like me, those weeks also involved building a color-coded spreadsheet of every assignment I have this semester. As we enter the second quarter, it’s time to start crossing things off a never-ending to-do list. Papers, presentations, and exams creep closer, and that senior thesis I’ve been thinking about since syllabus day? The first outline is due next week. But while the schoolwork piles up, so do the memories with friends. Anticipation over Parents’ Weekend looms; office hours are frantically scheduled; and coffee becomes a student’s best friend.

Read more about this week in the Hub here.

Welcome to Week 4! If you are like me, the beginning-of-term butterflies and rush of all that needs to be done to lay the groundwork for the semester have finally started to subside. Perhaps you are starting to fall into a more settled class routine, are collecting your first major assignments, and beginning to get to know more about who your students are and about the unique personalities and needs of each of your class sections. It is about this time that I celebrate the small wins – as of last Thursday, I know all my students’ names (!) and everyone turned in their first essay draft (!!) – but I also tend to begin seeing areas where my students might benefit from a small change to my course schedule or an adjustment to my usual teaching approach.

Whether you are looking for someone to celebrate those first small wins with or to help you think through an emerging challenge or dynamic in one of your courses, the Faculty Hub is here to support you! We hope you’ll join us at an upcoming event, schedule a one-on-one consultation with us, or just stop by the Faculty Hub to chat informally about how the semester is going. We look forward to crossing paths with you soon!

Read more here.

I’ve only been skydiving once, right after finishing undergrad. I took away two things: (1) jumping out of a plane is the best feeling on the planet (and I’d likely do it again, if anyone else shares an interest in this bonkers thing that is somehow legal), and (2) it’s nothing like how sitcoms portray it. There’s no conversation at the door of the plane, no dramatic “Are you sure you really want to do this??” moment. As the instructor warned me, once you’re up there, the only way out is to jump. The fall is loud and intense, and then suddenly you’re gliding in the most serene calm you’ve ever experienced.

That’s what Week 3 of the semester feels like to me. The jump has already happened, the rush is real, and things might feel chaotic. It’s also when teaching starts to open into something steadier and so rewarding. We’re in it now, but we’re also in it together, so come by the Faculty Hub to talk through both the chaos and the calm with us.

Keep reading here…

We find ourselves at a peculiar crossroads. AI offers us the most powerful efficiency tool in history—one that is already reshaping the world our students will inherit. Many of us feel we have a responsibility to help them understand and navigate these tools. And yet, here lies the tension: teaching and learning resist efficiency. Real learning demands attention, struggle, and time. No algorithm can shortcut the neural pathways forged when a student wrestles with a difficult concept.

So how do we meet this moment? We do what academics do best: we experiment. We engage thoughtfully and critically. We invite students into honest conversations about when AI helps and when it hinders. We test new assessment strategies. We stay alert to unexpected opportunities. Above all, we stay curious.

That’s our approach in the Faculty Hub. We’re exploring—together—what education looks like when we hold two truths at once. Our students need to understand these powerful new tools, and they still need to master the slow, inefficient, and irreplaceable art of learning itself.

Curious? Keep reading.

As you prepare for the semester, we’d like to share upcoming workshops and resources from the Digital Pedagogy support team—faculty and staff from IS, WLC, the Faculty Hub, Innovation Studio, SAL, and more—working together to support effective use of digital tools in teaching and learning.

Digital Pedagogy Tools

The Digital Pedagogy Toolkit is a curated set of tools and resources designed to support University of Richmond educators in achieving their teaching and learning objectives. It serves as both a starting point for integrating technology into your courses and a quick-reference guide for sustaining and refining your digital strategy once implemented.

Not finding the tool you’d like to use—or interested in experimenting with something new? Consider applying for a Digital Pedagogy Grant to explore innovative approaches in your teaching this semester.

Faculty can find support pathways for specific technologies, with each section linking directly to assistance and resources. For broader pedagogy questions, the Faculty Hub offers personalized one-on-one consultations. For technical issues, visit SpiderTechNet to submit a support ticket.

AI Programming

AI Literacy Faculty Learning Community (FLC)

The AI Literacy Faculty Learning Community offers faculty a supportive space to build AI literacy, explore teaching strategies, and share experiences with colleagues. Facilitated by Saif Mehkari, Andrew Bell, and Ryan Cales, these sessions will combine presentations, guided discussions, and practical examples, with a focus on both the opportunities and challenges of generative AI. We’ll meet over breakfast in Dhall on Fridays this semester. Register here

Introduction to Computational Map Studies

September 15, 12–1:30 pm, Faculty Hub or Zoom

Explore MapReader to analyze digitized maps as data—no programming experience required. Co-hosted by CLAAI and the Faculty Hub, with lunch provided.

Register here

Non-AI Event

WordPress Workshop

September 17, 12–1 pm, Faculty Hub

Learn to use Create, UR’s new WordPress service, for digital assignments, portfolios, and collaborative course sites. Co-hosted by the Library and the Faculty Hub, with lunch provided.

Register here

We hope these workshops and resources are helpful as you plan for the semester ahead.

August can sometimes seem like the world’s longest Sunday—still summer, but with the school year hovering just around the corner. As much as I savor the relative calm of those last days of summer, the first day of classes always feels to me a bit like the first day of Spring: full of energy, new beginnings, and just a bit of trepidation. No matter how many years I’ve been teaching, I still get (at least a few) butterflies on that first walk into the classroom.

I used to wonder how it was possible for me to still be nervous about the first day of class after all this time. Now I’ve come to see that those butterflies aren’t necessarily a bad thing—and that, based on many conversations, I’m not alone in having them! Those nerves mean that we care and that we know that what we do matters. They stem from our understanding that teaching is full of both possibility and unpredictability. And that is the integral beauty of it.

As you walk into your new classes this week, I’m sending best wishes to you and your students for good energy and just the right amount of butterflies. And because the start of a new semester is always better in good company, I hope you’ll join us for our Welcome Back Breakfast this Thursday, August 28, from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. here in the Faculty Hub. The new academic year brings so much activity to the Faculty Hub! Read on to find out more about this semester, including our upcoming cohorts.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes! Most K-12 students in the area are back in school this week. Adorable back-to-school photos will flood social media, marking the beginning of a new school year. (My son is a senior this year, what???) Our students will follow next week and turn our currently quiet campus into a cacophony of learning. It is a time of change in many ways. Hopefully, some of our upcoming sessions can help you with any changes you might be considering this semester, such as revising your syllabus, exploring how to use generative AI in your classroom, and/or rethinking how you grade.

Keep reading here.

As summer draws to a close, you may (understandably!) be mourning the end of rest, travel, family time, or focused research time, but I hope that the impending start of the semester also brings with it at least a glimmer of joy and excitement. Students often walk into the first week of classes full of anticipation, curiosity, and likely a bit of trepidation. Even after all these years teaching, the same is true for me, too! So, as you begin to shift your attention to course planning more fully, I have an invitation for you: How might you design your courses–or at least those first few days–to harness your students’ curiosity, to share your own excitement for the content of your course, and to quell any nervousness that your students (or you!) might bring with them into your class?

If you are looking for inspiration or just want to work on prepping your fall courses in community with others, we hope you’ll stop by the Faculty Hub to attend one of our upcoming pre-semester events or simply to grab a snack and find a welcoming place to work. Sometimes, attending a teaching workshop or swapping ideas with colleagues has a way of sparking creativity and reminding us why we wanted to teach a particular course in the first place.

See more here.