Welcome to 2022

Welcome to a new year and a new semester! We hope everyone stayed warm and had a restful break. This semester, we’re ready to hit the ground running with programming to support your career development needs and a writing accountability app to help with your scholarly writing goals.

We’ll bring back our new faculty series starting this month, partnering with the Office for Teaching & Learning, the Academy of Teachers, and the Office of Multicultural Student Engagement. In February, we’ll begin a two-part series on academic social media use led by Jennifer Hart of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Department of History. We’ll host a series of informational panels on the promotion and tenure process in late February and early March. Check out our professional development seminar page for the most up-to-date information.

Writing Warriors app

Introducing the Writing Warriors app to help you with your writing goals. With tools for personal accountability: a writing timer and a space to enter and check off goals so you can keep a log and be accountable to yourself, and tools for external accountability: if you add friends and colleagues to encourage you and keep you on track, Writing Warriors can function as an electronic Writing Accountability Group (WAG).

Check out the instructions and join us in Writing Warriors today!

Helping to develop the leaders the academy needs

Wayne State University is committed to developing effective academic leaders. To this end, the Office of the Provost created the Academic Leadership Academy (ALA) to support the development of the leadership skills and capacity of WSU faculty and academic staff.

The ALA is a one-year program designed for full-time faculty and academic staff who have some knowledge and experience working toward the mission of WSU and in their areas of expertise and are prepared to build their capacity to be more effective leaders at WSU, in their disciplines, departments, schools/colleges/units, and/or communities, in either formal and informal leadership roles.

Have you considered applying for the ALA but want to know more? Informational sessions with the ALA Steering Committee and alumni are scheduled for the following dates/times (click on the date to RSVP for the indicated session):

• 2 - 2:45 p.m. Friday, Jan. 7, 2022
• 10:15 - 11 a.m. Friday, Jan. 21, 2022
• 1:30 - 2:15 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, 2022
• 3 - 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022
• 1:15 - 2 p.m. Wednesday, Mar. 2, 2022

National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity

We continue to partner with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) to provide additional resources for faculty development. Our membership gives you access to all their regular programming, including the Core Curriculum, which is designed to operate as a year-long virtual mentorship program to increase your writing productivity and work-life balance. Each of the following resources is available to you to watch at your convenience:

Monthly Core Curriculum Webinars

January - Every Semester Needs a Plan
February - Align Your Time with Your Priorities
March - How to Develop a Daily Writing Practice
April - Mastering Academic Time Management
May - Every Summer Needs a Plan
June - Moving from Resistance to Writing
July - The Art of Saying ‘No’
August - Cultivating Your Network of Mentors, Sponsors & Collaborators
September - Overcoming Academic Perfectionism
October - How to Engage in Healthy Conflict
November - Strategies for Dealing with Stress, Rejection, & the Haters in Your Midst

You can register for any webinar and participate live at the scheduled time, or if you want to learn at a more convenient time, all of their webinars are available on demand.

Guest Expert Webinars & Multi-Week Courses

In addition to the Core Curriculum webinars, NCFDD also offers a variety of training on all the skills you need to succeed in the Academy, but no one ever teaches you. This fall, they featured Guest Expert webinars on:

• Supporting Trans* Scholars
• Building a Publishing Pipeline 2.0
• Teaching with Empathy and for Equity at the Graduate Level
• Dismantling Disciplinary Whiteness: Centering Care in Editorial Stewardship
• Overcoming by Understanding Academic Writer’s Block

If you’ve never explored this feature of your membership, why not take a few minutes to skim through their library.

Faculty Success Programs

The NCFDD’s Faculty Success Program or ‘bootcamp’ is a 12-week online program to help tenure-track and tenured faculty with the skills necessary to increase research and writing productivity while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Choose the timing of a bootcamp that suits you best, and, if you’re eligible, apply for Tenured Faculty/ESS Academic Staff Professional Development Program funds to use toward this program (winter deadline Feb. 1).

Upcoming professional development programming

2022 New Faculty Orientation Series: 3 Keys to a Successful Semester

Coming up at noon on Friday, Jan. 14, Instructional Designer Ligia Pamfilie and Post Doc Fellow Anabel Stoeckle from Wayne State’s Office for Teaching & Learning present 3 Keys to a Successful Semester.

In this session, representatives from the OTL will explore selected pedagogical principles that you can utilize in any teaching format to set you and your students up for success. They will discuss strategies to strengthen communication between you and your students, explore elements of meaningful group work, and examine how to purposefully create checkpoints for learning throughout the semester. They will also review teaching-related resources available to you on campus. You will leave with 1-2 strategies that you can implement right away.

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify three core pedagogical principles for a successful semester
2. Explore helpful teaching and learning resources at WSU
3. Select 1-2 strategies to implement this semester

This virtual session will be recorded; we recommend that you register even if you cannot attend at the scheduled time to be notified when a recording is made available.

NCFDD: Every Semester Needs a Plan

Coming up at noon on Friday, Jan. 21, Associate Professor of Nursing Debra Schutte will lead workshop participants in Every Semester Needs a Plan from the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity’s (NCFDD) core curriculum.

Participants will leave this workshop with a clear assessment and plan that includes realistic goals and expectations, milestones to assess achievement, and tips on how to re-evaluate as the semester progresses.

Open to all WSU faculty and academic staff, this is an interactive session, so come ready to work with the host to map out your time and discuss time management strategies.

This virtual session will be recorded; we recommend that you register even if you cannot attend at the scheduled time to be notified when a recording is made available.

Promotion & Tenure series

Coming up in February and March, we’ll host a series of informational panels on promotion and tenure processes for faculty and academic staff. Check the listings on our Professional Development website to find the right session for your needs.

As always, check our Professional Development website and follow the Faculty Success Twitter account to learn about additional upcoming professional development programming.