UW Green Bay
Campus Report

By Heidi Fencl

The most exciting update from Green Bay is that as of early August we have a Teaching/Learning Center on campus!  The Faculty Development Center is housed out of the Provost's Office, is staffed approximately half time by a faculty member, and has office support through the Provost's Office.  The Instructional Development Council, UWGB's long-standing instructional development committee, serves as advisory board to the FDC.  In addition to continuing the work that has been done out of the Council, this first year is an exciting time to develop and prioritize new initiatives and ideas!

EVENTS

• ·     Planning is underway for the 13^th annual Faculty Development Conference to be held this year on the UWGB campus on January 22, 2009.  The theme of the conference is Creative and Critical Thinking.  Craig Nelson is our keynote speaker, and faculty from across the System are welcome.  Registration and preliminary information are on-line at www.uwgb.edu/outreach/facultydev
• ·     We have expanded our New Faculty Orientation program.  New colleagues are introduced to the variety of teaching/learning resources on campus following our opening convocation, and attend the January teaching conference.  In addition, we have added three sessions during the semester relating to knowing our students, teaching initiatives on campus, and personnel procedures.  We look forward to expanding and revising this program to include a greater teaching skills/pedagogy focus for future years, and to deepening the mentoring program that is currently in place for tenure-track faculty members.
• ·     The UWGB Teaching Scholars program continues again this year with 5 Scholars who will work on course development projects.  Meetings occur approximately monthly so that Scholars interact with mentors, each other, and over reading materials as they develop their projects.
• ·     Smaller faculty development events are in the planning stages.  It is interesting to read that other campuses will focus on on-line learning this year, as that has emerged as the leading request for information from units across campus so far. 

INITIATIVES/PRIORITIES

·         The most initial challenge for the new center is deepen the culture of faculty development across campus.  At this point, some departments put a high priority on such development and members of other departments rarely participate in these opportunities.

·         As mentioned above, on-line learning is a priority area of interest for many on campus.

·         Expanding the mentoring program and making it more consistently meaningful is an additional priority for the year.