Amid continued concerns regarding faculty engagement, along with heightened challenges associated with recruitment, retention, teaching and learning, and student success, this status report provides an update based on the June 2023 Faculty (Re)engagement Institute (FRI). During the edition of the June 2023 FRI, participants examined barriers…

Educators and administrators in higher education are currently grappling with the effects of individual and collective trauma as it relates to college students' academic performance. A plethora of research points to the inimical effects that trauma can have on students' learning and persistence. This article outlines common trauma terms and…

Effective faculty development programs are essential to improving student success and achieving institutional goals. Yet designing and implementing successful faculty development within FYE programs remain a challenge. We examine these challenges and discuss how a redesigned on-campus faculty development effort, connected to an online course on…

The paper presents findings from a study that assessed the impact of a faculty development approach designed to improve technology integration specific to a comprehensive FYE program. Partnering with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and informed by data gathered annually from faculty and student mentors, FYE leaders created a…

This study explored how participating in a faculty development course based on improvisational theatre affects college instructors' ability to increase student engagement and learning. Theoretical foundations included engagement, active learning, collaboration and social interaction, the art of improvisational theater, and the practice of applied…

Effective mentoring of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in STEM can make a difference in degree completion. The researchers designed and implemented a program to prepare faculty for mentoring AI/AN students in STEM, which then allowed the study to take place. Process measures (e. g., participation and program satisfaction measures)…

For many faculty, critical reflection on teaching and learning requires space and time that is not readily available. For fifteen years, we have run a substantial year-long faculty development program designed to help participants: (1) reflect critically on their teaching and their students' learning; and (2) develop a project related to their…

Scholarly teaching, the act of systematically examining the links between one's teaching and student learning, remains a challenging idea for many faculty members. We argue that two threshold concepts--teaching as an inquiry-based process and teaching as a public act--serve as powerful hurdles to the more wide spread adoption of scholarly teaching…

The Threshold Concepts Framework acts as a catalyst in faculty development activities, energising and provoking discussion by faculty about their own courses in their own disciplines, and often leading to the discovery of transformational concepts that occasion epistemic and ontological shifts in their students. The present study focuses on…

Project Engage (PE) was a 16-month teaching enhancement program offered at a large doctoral-granting university. Participants in this pilot program were full time faculty members who redesigned large enrollment introductory university courses to improve student engagement. To support their redesign projects, participants first received feedback…

This cross-disciplinary study examined syllabus quality (n = 280) and the connection of learning outcomes to the Dimensions of a Duquesne Education for two purposes: informing instructional development and writing an accreditation self-study. Three researchers coded the syllabi for learning outcomes, assessment, and the presence of these…

Demonstrating the impact of faculty development activities is difficult and infrequently attempted beyond assessing participant satisfaction. This study examines how faculty development activities affect instructional practices and the impact on student learning and motivation in accordance with Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation. Ten instructors…

Many faculty developers have difficulty involving engineering and science faculty in instructional development. Engineering professors are particularly quick to discount the relevance of teaching workshops, and many argue teaching methods presented in workshops lead to lower standards and inflated grades. This paper presents a successful…