Dear Colleagues,

The OTL is excited to announce that Dr. Leslie Cramblet Alvarez will join DU as our new Director of the OTL on January 6, 2020! As the Founding Director of the Center of Teaching, Innovation, & Research at Adams State University, Dr. Alvarez has led a robust portfolio that includes spearheading teaching and learning initiatives, redesigning and leading new faculty orientation, acquiring research and engagement grants, hosting faculty leadership and mentorship series, and leading a team of faculty through a multi-year curriculum redesign process. In addition to her love of education and psychology, Leslie enjoys yoga, meditation, and sharing updates about education in the Twitterverse. 
As Professor of Psychology and President of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, Leslie’s background includes significant work in teaching, learning, inclusion, equity, and high impact practices. This combination of knowledge, expertise, and experiences is sure to be a major asset to the entire campus.

Please join me in welcoming Leslie to the DU community, and please watch for more information from Leslie as the academic year progresses!
Best wishes for a joyful and restorative holiday season,
Kate
Planning for Success Seminar


Session date: Friday, January 10

The Office of Teaching and Learning and the Vice Provost's Office of Faculty Affairs will be offering a professional development event entitled Planning for Success: Prioritizing Your Research and Creating an Action Plan. This full day will be offered in three parts:

Session 1: The Mythical Notion of an Academic’s Flexible Schedule - 9:00-11:00 a.m.

Led by Dr. Tayana Hardin and Dr. Kate Willink, t his session confronts the myth of the academic’s flexible schedule. There’s a good chance we all know how it feels to set grand project goals at the beginning of the term only to find ourselves nowhere near completion by the term’s end. Instead of celebrating a job well done, we find ourselves asking: what happened? Where did the time go? Why do I have so little to show for it? Somehow all the "free time" we imagined we would have before or after class got swallowed up by office hours and advising and service and…well, the list goes on and on. As many of us already know, managing the academic’s “free time" isn’t just a challenge for newly minted PhD’s in university positions; it’s also something our more senior colleagues struggle with as they acquire more skills and, consequently, greater service or administrative responsibilities. So what gives? In this session, participants will think together about what it means to approach academic time management as more than a method of merging a calendar with a to-do list. Instead, we will use humor, intel-sharing around the topic of weekly planning, and no-nonsense, focused exercises to ask:  what would it take to make time an asset on our journey toward promotion and project completion?

Session 2: Realistic Scheduling for Writing Projects - 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

In this session, Dr. Judy Marquez Kiyama and Dr. Susana Mu ñ oz first share their personal journeys as Sistah Scholars, a journey they have taken together since graduate school and one that has helped them thrive with writing projects, in the academy, and in their personal lives. They will offer participants strategies on cultivating time, space, and energy for semester (quarter), weekly, and daily writing goals and share the ways in which support and reward structures are closely linked to these goals. Participants will work through their writing challenges, sustaining momentum, and the ways in which community can be cultivated in order to support realistic and enjoyable writing goals.

Session 3: Thriving: Mapping Your Personal and Professional Goals for Success - 1:30-3:00 p.m.

Led by Dr. Susan Walter and Dr. Erin Willer, this session will allow participants to reflect on how to divide up their schedules in order to thrive or live their most whole-hearted lives. Participants will create strategies around work-life balance, saying no, mindful scheduling, grading management, and identifying support networks. Dr. Walter and Dr. Willer will also guide participants through tools and examples for how to schedule in whole-hearted ways.

You can join us on Friday, January 10 for the whole day or any of the three sessions that works with your schedule. It will be a fantastic and productive day!
Parenting and Productivity

Session dates:
Tuesdays: January 14, 28; February 11, 25

Does the idea of “work-life” balance make you want to laugh – or cry – as you juggle raising children and your academic workload? You are not alone!

The Parenting and Productivity group will foster a supportive, non-judgmental atmosphere to tackle the specific challenges facing academics who are parenting children (or anyone else who provides time-intensive and physically demanding dependent care). Join Dr. Karen Swanson from the OTL and Dr. Erin Willer from the Communication Studies Department for donuts as we watch and discuss NCFDD’s four-week series on Parenting and Productivity.    
   
All sessions meet in the OTL Conference Room (AAC 345) from 8:30-10:00 a.m. Please register for the sessions you would like to attend using the buttons below.  
Feel free to come late or leave early and to join us as you are able. We look forward to these amazing sessions!
Congratulations to the NCFDD 14-Day Writing Challenge Winners!

We are happy to announce the winners of the October 2019 NCFDD 14-day Writing Challenge:

Dr. Trace Reddell , Associate Professor of Emergent Digital Practices, used the 14-day Writing Challenge to make daily progress on a new book project under contract with MIT Press.

Dr. Kareem El Damanhoury , Assistant Professor of Media and Journalism Studies, used the challenge to make time during the quarter to start writing a research paper he is presenting at a conference in early January.
 
We hope you will consider participating in the next NCFDD 14-Day Writing Challenge online from  March 23 – April 5, 2020 . You can find more details and register at the NCFDD website . Congratulations to Dr. Reddell and Dr. El Damanhoury!
Faculty Learning Community: ePortfolio

Session dates:
Thursday, February 6, 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Monday, March 16, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

The new ePortfolio Faculty Learning Community (eFLC) recently held the first set of quarterly meetings this Fall, where lively discussions and group brainstorming generated exciting new ideas and collaborations. There are two additional meetings scheduled for the upcoming Winter 2020 term. We’d love for you to join us!

All sessions meet in the OTL Conference Room (AAC 345). Please learn more about the eFLC on our DU Portfolio site and register for the dates you would like to attend using the buttons below.
Faculty Learning Community: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Session dates:
Friday, February 14, 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Friday, March 13, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Please join us in exploring how to incorporate the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning into the balance of your work at DU. Blending your teaching and research agendas is a great way to invigorate your course design through a systematic approach. This community will engage in discussion around systematically studying our teaching and student learning. Whether you are new to this topic or have been involved in SOTL for years, please join us!

All sessions meet in the OTL Conference Room (AAC 345). Please register for the Scholarship of Teaching and Faculty Learning Community dates you would like to attend using the buttons below.
Faculty Learning Community: Race and Writing Assessment

Session dates:
Mondays: April 6, 13, 20; May 4, 18; June 1

This Faculty Learning Community is centered around Asao B. Inoue and Mya Poe's book Race and Writing Assessment (2012). Facilitated by Dr. Valentina Iturbe-LaGrave, Director of Inclusive Teaching, and Dr. Karen Swanson, Director of Faculty Learning Groups and Scholarship, community members will read the edited collection of established and up-and-coming scholars in composition studies to explore how writing assessment needs to change to account for the increasing diversity of students in college classrooms today.

All sessions meet in the OTL Conference Room (AAC 345) from 12:00-1:30 p.m. Participants must attend all sessions and will receive a copy of the book upon registration. For more information and to register, please use the button below.
Heart of Higher Education Conversations

Session dates:
Thursdays: January 9, February 13,
March 12

The Heart of Higher Education is an opportunity to gather as a DU community to share the challenges and opportunities of transcending the institutional, professional and personal choices that tend to separate core identity/integrity from day to day actions. These conversations create a positive and constructive space where staff and faculty can explore ways of re-connecting their calling with their professional responsibilities.

All sessions meet in the OTL Conference Room (AAC 345) from 12:00-1:00 p.m. Please register for the Heart of Higher Education dates you would like to attend using the buttons below.
Radical Dharma Book Club

Session dates:
Wednesdays: January 29; February 5, 12, 19
Join Dr. Paul Michalec (Morgridge College of Education) and Professor Lorena Gaibor (Graduate School of Social Work) for an exploration of Radical Dharma by Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Dr. Jasmine Syedullah. This book invites us to engage with racism and white supremacy through critical thinking, contemplative practice, and the authors’ own journeys as queer, Black, Buddhist practitioners and teachers.

Radical Dharma invites us to better understand the role racism plays in our daily lives alongside the larger work of interrupting the spread white supremacy culture. For educators, this work invites us to connect the head with the heart, taking a more holistic, embodied approach to addressing white supremacy in our classrooms.
All sessions meet in the OTL Conference Room (AAC 345) from 12:00-1:00 p.m. Please register using the button below. For more information please visit our OTL blog!
As always, please visit our OTL Events Calendar to view all upcoming OTL events.