Author: Jane Bise

As you finish up these busy days of April and May, we invite you to end your semester on a high note with programming to help you reflect on the academic year and prepare for a fruitful summer. Our reinvigorating May Daze Schedule is below. Read on for more detailed information. If you want to finish grading or get a jump start on writing before May Daze begins, please join us for our Writing and Grading Retreat on Tuesday, April 30, and/or Wednesday, May 1, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Please see the full schedule here. Note that we have rescheduled two events on Monday, May 13, to avoid conflicts with other campus events that day. The updated schedule is below. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we hope you can join us!

Summer Research Prep Day – Monday, May 13

• Authors’ Rights: Use the Law, Share Your Scholarship, Change the World from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
• R Studio on Spiderweb from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. *NEW TIME
• Jupyter Lab on Spiderweb from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
• An Introduction to Using LLMs Within Quantitative Workflows from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. *NEW TIME

Spring brings abundant flowers, fuzzy goslings, longer days, and a chance to look at things a bit differently as we emerge from our winter cocoons. In that spirit of spring, we invite you to explore the upcoming April offerings at the Faculty Hub. Learn from other faculty at the Celebration of Teaching. Consider a new opportunity like the Inclusive Pedagogy Partnership Program (IP3). Think ahead to the effect the 2024 elections will have on your classroom. Get inspired (or at least do some grading) at one of our upcoming Writing and Grading Retreats. Explore various AI topics at one of the three AI talks on campus this month, including one this afternoon on AI & Ethics. And if you check out Andrew’s blog, you *might* get to see a photo of him at a Weezer show in 2001.

Keep reading to learn more.

As we near the midpoint of the semester, we hope all is going well. Midterm can be a good time to gather feedback from your students about their experiences in your courses so far. See our tipsheet on “Gathering Feedback from Students” for ideas, formats, and resources for doing so! You can also reach out to the Faculty Hub to schedule a one-on-one consultation about designing a feedback survey for your particular goals and teaching context.

Keep reading about more happenings here.

We are glad everyone made their way back! We hope you will join us for our Welcome Back Breakfast on January 19 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. to reconnect with colleagues and enjoy some back-to-school sustenance here in the Faculty Hub on the third floor of Boatwright Library. We’ll have breakfast goodies, coffee, and door prizes.

Read more about our spring offerings here!

You don’t have to face those end-of-semester tasks alone! Join us for a writing and grading retreat here in the Faculty Hub on Tuesday, December 12. We’ll provide all participants with lunch, seasonal goodies, and beverages (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and more) all day long. Come on by and get cozy. Stay for any amount of time that works for you between the hours of 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Please also note that the Pedagogy and Generative AI Faculty Exchange date was incorrect in this newsletter. It is on Wednesday, January 10. 

We here at the Faculty Hub are grateful to be working with so many engaged and committed faculty, staff, and administration members here at UR. We’re sending you best wishes as we head into the last part of the semester and the end of the calendar year.

Greetings, everyone! We hope you had a restful Fall Break. We’re excited to co-host a campus visit (October 25-27) by Michael Reder, Director of the Joy Shechtman Mankoff Center for Teaching & Learning at Connecticut College, an expert in using writing and active teaching to support student learning. Michael’s visit will allow faculty and instructional staff to reflect on the upcoming launch of the new General Education curriculum in Fall 2024. If you’ve been part of the FYS program for the past few years, you likely already know Michael as a longstanding collaborator and partner with the University of Richmond. If you haven’t yet met Michael, we hope you will make the most of his time on campus by attending an event or scheduling a one-on-one consultation with him. We’d especially like to call your attention to Michael’s keynote on October 26 from 3 to 4:30 p.m., entitled Reinventing Your Courses — and Reanimating Your Teaching — in Richmond’s New GE Program, a talk intended to bring us all together to consider the importance of this moment. Many of the events surrounding Michael’s visit will count for the required professional development under the new General Education curriculum. Read on to learn more!

We hope everyone is back into the swing of things and enjoying the last days of warmer weather. Keep reading for some new AI resources and information about some exciting talks, including one with Matthew R. Kay, the author of Not Light, but Fire: How To Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom.

Learn more here!