FACULTY ROLES IN HIGH-IMPACT PRACTICES

Call for Proposals

The deadline for the call for proposals was September 8. Please contact Siah Annand at annand@aacu.org for additional information.

Conference Themes
Session Formats
Become a LEAP Featured Session
Writing a Strong Proposal
Dates to Remember

The Network for Academic Renewal invites proposals that explore the faculty’s use of high-impact practices to foster student learning of essential outcomes. Certain curricular and pedagogical practices—including undergraduate research, service-learning, first-year and capstone projects/programs, and learning communities—by their nature require students to be actively involved in their own learning. These “high-impact” practices, when done well, engage students by helping them to make their own discoveries and connections, grapple with “big” questions whose importance they can see, and address complex problems.

AAC&U seeks to highlight the ways in which faculty are using high-impact practices in and beyond the disciplines—in courses, majors, general education, and in partnership with student affairs—along with discussion of their impact on both faculty and students. What goes into using these practices in different disciplines and divisions across campus, and what evidence is there that they make a difference? How are they being scaled up and sustained, so that more faculty use them and more students participate in them? What can administrators and others on campus do to support and partner with faculty in the use of these practices, so that they become the norm, and not the exception? And how can faculty, across disciplines and types of institutions, better connect to these practices as a way to shape the direction of the professoriate, strengthen the public purpose of higher education, and fulfill the promise of a quality college education for all students entering college today?

Faculty Roles in High-Impact Practices will highlight the new and expanding roles that faculty are playing in developing and using high-impact practices—in and beyond the disciplines—to foster student learning. The conference is designed for faculty members seeking innovative, robust, and practical  designs  for  learning, teaching, and assessment approaches proven to deepen student engagement,  and a network of engaged colleagues. It is also geared toward administrators and others on campus looking to support and partner with faculty to advance the use of high-impact practices for more students, more intentionally, across multiple points in time. The conference thus seeks proposals highlighting models of these high-impact practices and those that address issues of faculty rewards, promotion and tenure, cost-effectiveness, and more.

Conference Themes

The conference grew out of conversation with faculty, administrators, and student affairs educators at the 2009 Faculty Roles conference in San Diego, CA, and at an April 2009 planning meeting in Philadelphia. The questions that follow each theme are suggestive and are not meant to cover the range of topics that can be proposed under each theme.

1. Aims and Purposes of High-Impact Practices. This theme addresses the kinds of knowledge, skills, and competencies that high-impact practices are designed to foster; the aims and purposes of high-impact practices for faculty at different types of institutions; and the role high-impact practices can play in fostering greater levels of success for students historically underserved by higher education.

• How are faculty employing first-year and capstone courses, service-learning courses, undergraduate research programs, and learning communities to facilitate students’ development of essential outcomes—knowledge of one or more disciplines; critical thinking and cognitive complexity; ethical decision-making; civic- and global-mindedness; intercultural competence; and the ability to take seriously the perspectives of others? 
• How are faculty members infusing diversity, civic, and global learning within high-impact practices to anchor students’ learning in their lived experiences and to help them apply knowledge in real-world settings?
• How are faculty members using technology to help promote active learning within high-impact practices?
• Does the purpose of high-impact practices differ across types of institutions—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensives, and research universities? If so, how?
• How are faculty members using high-impact practices to foster greater levels of success for underserved students? How are faculty employing high-impact practices to engage the increasing number of students who are the first in their families to attend college, for whom English is a second language, and who enter less-well prepared for college-level work? What specific elements of different curricular or pedagogical approaches make an appreciable difference for different groups of students, and why?

2. Models and Assessment – What Works? This theme invites proposals that highlight the ways in which faculty are using high-impact practices in and beyond the disciplines—in courses, majors, general education, and in partnership with student affairs. Proposals are also invited that share efforts by faculty and others on campus to use authentic, robust assessments to gauge student learning in and across high-impact practices.

• What are the hallmarks of “next generation” service learning programs, learning communities, first-year programs, and undergraduate research programs? What does the research that has been done on these practices tell us about what makes them successful? What specific assessment tools are faculty developing or using that would interest other faculty?
• How are faculty members employing high-impact practices in “major-specific” ways, to foster disciplinary habits of mind and help students understand theories and methodologies associated with different disciplines? What assessment is being done to gauge student learning in disciplines as a result of particular practices?
• How are faculty members utilizing high-impact practices to help students grapple with large, interdisciplinary social problems, such as pandemics or hunger? What has been done to assess impact, both on students and on solving the problems?
• What do high-impact experiences entail in general education? How have they been used to build greater support for general education among faculty? How are capstone experiences helping students integrate learning from the major and general education?
• How are faculty members sequencing high-impact practices into students’ educational experiences over time? How do these practices work in combination (e.g., learning communities that feature service learning, undergraduate research as a capstone project)? What evidence is being gathered to ascertain the cumulative impact of these practices across majors, general education, and the co-curriculum?
• How are faculty members employing technology to implement and assess high-impact practices?

3. Faculty Development and Engagement in High-Impact Practices. This theme addresses how to deepen and broaden faculty use of high-impact practices. Proposals might discuss faculty development programs, new faculty orientation, faculty learning communities, and other initiatives, as well as successful strategies for engaging different groups of faculty, including early, middle, and late career faculty, contingent faculty, and faculty across liberal arts and professional programs.

• How are faculty development programs assisting faculty with designing and using high-impact practices? How are these programs helping faculty to evaluate high-impact practices and assess student learning in and across them?  How are these programs helping faculty to better utilize technology within high-impact practices?
• How are institutions helping contingent faculty to be involved in service-learning, undergraduate research, and other high-impact practices? How is this kind of activity helping contingent faculty to forge connections with departments or divisions and with institutional goals for student learning?
• Among faculty, who participates in undergraduate research, service-learning, and other high-impact practices? How can these practices be designed to appeal to faculty at early, middle, and later stages of their careers? Are new faculty provided professional pathways that enable them to focus on engaged learning? What are some examples of these pathways?
• How are opportunities to participate in high-impact practices communicated to faculty? Which of these practices have originated among the faculty and spread in a more grass-roots fashion?  What lessons do examples provide regarding why faculty feel connected or committed to different practices?

4. Supporting Faculty in High-Impact Practices. This theme focuses on the structures and processes that impact faculty in relation to scholarship and their use of high-impact practices —including peer review, evaluation, and promotion and tenure. This theme also addresses collaboration among faculty and with others on- and off-campus, as well as leadership roles related to high-impact practices, on campus and beyond.

• In light of the high-impact practices, what does “good teaching” and “good scholarship” entail? How are tenure, promotion, and peer review evolving to support faculty in implementing new and engaged forms of teaching and scholarship, in their disciplines and in general education? 
• How are campuses building the use of high-impact practices into institutional expectations of success for faculty? How are institutions recognizing and rewarding the time and involvement that high-impact practices require of faculty?
• As teaching and research becomes more interdisciplinary, moves into communities, and involves a more diverse set of outcomes, what are institutions doing to ensure that newer forms of teaching and research “count” in review processes?  Who would qualify as a “peer” in community-based teaching and research, and in other newer, more engaged forms of teaching and scholarship?
• What kinds of leadership roles now exist for faculty vis-à-vis high-impact practices, on and off campus? How are faculty shaping and contributing to national conversations on these practices?
• What new collaborations—among faculty, as well as between faculty and administrators, faculty and students, faculty and community partners, and faculty and student affairs—are arising through the use of high-impact practices? What structures or incentives encourage faculty to form and maintain these partnerships?
• What promise do high-impact practices hold in attracting more undergraduate and graduate students—particularly from underrepresented groups—to the professoriate? 
• How can faculty, along with deans, department chairs, and others, work to sustain high-impact practices in tough economic times?

Session Formats

There are four session formats from which to choose: (1) Hands-On Workshop, (2) Research/Project Dissemination & Discussion, (3) Poster Demonstration, and (4) Facilitated Discussion. Please select the format that will advance participants’ understanding and potential use of your work. One way to effectively engage participants across the different formats is to have them explore ways to apply your information and resources to their own institutional and professional settings. 

In an effort to conserve resources, proposals are asked to minimize the use of audio visual equipment and extensive handouts.  Electronic resources will be provided to participants both before and after the conference.

Format 1: Hands-On Workshop (90 minutes; 2-3 facilitators; room set in round tables)
Workshops provide an opportunity for the facilitators to significantly engage participants in active learning about the session topic. Workshops should begin with a brief framing of the topic and an overview of intended activities and goals for the session. Facilitators should introduce one or more models or strategies employed in their own work and provide data/findings related to the topic, benchmarks for success, common challenges, and practical examples that enhance participants’ learning. Facilitators should specifically take participants through one or more relevant exercises or activities (including in small groups) that will foster constructive dialogue and help them to move their own efforts forward upon returning to campus.

All sessions should include discussion of how participants might translate and adapt models and strategies to their institutional and professional settings. If the workshop is better suited to a particular type of institution (e.g., community college, research university), or level of expertise (novice, intermediate, advanced), please make that clear.

Hands-On Workshop proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. state the problem or issue that your workshop addresses
3. indicate how models or strategies that you plan to share have effectively addressed the problem or issue
4. describe the intended activities and outcomes of your session, noting how the activities will help participants achieve the outcomes
5. describe the aspects of your work that can be applied to one or more sectors of higher education (i.e., large universities, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive institutions, community colleges)
6. describe the level to which your session is geared (novice, intermediate, advanced)
7. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
8. include time for participants to discuss how your models and strategies might translate to their own campus contexts and roles

Format 2: Research/Project Dissemination and Discussion (75 minutes; 2-3 facilitators; room set in round tables)
This session should allow for (a) 15-20 minutes for facilitators to highlight their research findings or promising project, model, or other innovation; (b) 35-40 minutes to work through practical applications of this work with participants (e.g., to other institutions or in scaling up to involve greater numbers of students); and (c) 15-20 minutes for discussion. Research-focused proposals should state the research hypothesis, the methodology used, and the major findings, and offer concrete examples/steps related to using the findings to effect change. Data, findings, and applications should be presented in ways that are accessible to participants and allow them to engage in a discussion about applications and implications. Project/model/innovation-focused proposals should briefly describe the project, the parties involved (e.g., humanities and science faculty, residence life staff, first-year students, etc.), the impetus for the project, components, challenges encountered, strategies for implementation and plans for assessing its effectiveness.

NOTE: All sessions should engage participants in thinking about how they might translate and adapt the research or project/model/innovation to their own institutional and professional settings. Facilitators are also welcome to solicit feedback that would inform their work. If the dissemination and discussion session is better suited to a particular type of institution (e.g., community college, research university), or level of expertise (novice, intermediate, advanced), please make that clear.

Research-Focused Dissemination and Discussion proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. state the hypothesis/problem your research has addressed
3. describe briefly the methodology and the parameters of the study
4. provide visual means of presenting findings and applications
5. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
6. include time throughout the session for participants to discuss the implications of the findings and practical applications

Project/Model/Innovation-Focused Dissemination & Discussion proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. describe the project, model, or innovation to be featured
3. highlight the parties involved (e.g., humanities and science faculty, residence life staff, first-year students), the impetus for the project, components, challenges encountered, and strategies for implementation and assessment.
4. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
5. include time throughout the session for participants to discuss the implications of the findings and practical applications

Format 3: Poster Sessions (60 min.; 1-2 facilitators; 6’x3’ skirted table; no internet access; electrical outlet and other supports as available, upon request)
Poster sessions lend themselves well to combining visual displays of key information with written materials and small group interaction to create a more individualized learning experience. These sessions provide an opportunity for you to share your work with the full conference audience, and they are a valuable way to initiate conversations with colleagues with similar interests. These sessions can include 3’x 4’ boards to display charts, diagrams, pictures, and/or graphs that depict program components, findings, samples of student work, participant testimony, and so on. You may also wish to present information through technological means or other types of visual displays that can be set-up on the 6’x3’ table provided.

Poster Session proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. state the problem or issue that your display will address
3. indicate how your work has effectively addressed the issue
4. describe the visual data, display, etc. that you will provide
5. indicate how the data or information will be useful to a particular or multiple sectors of higher education
6. include links to relevant Web sites or attachments of materials you will share, if available
7. include students or student perspectives where relevant

NOTE: Our ability to provide technical assistance is limited, but if you have a project for which you need such assistance, we are happy to explore options with you. Poster boards are provided upon request.

Format 4: Facilitated Discussions (60 min.; 1-2 facilitators; room set in round tables; no audio-visual)
Facilitated discussions provide time for colleagues to share expertise and experiences on a topic of similar interest. They provide a valuable opportunity to network and reflect upon ideas, challenges, and possible solutions in an informal setting. Facilitated discussions may take one of the following approaches:

• Topical discussion: The facilitator briefly presents information on a topic or challenge related to one of the conference themes and assists the group in examining issues of concern and new ways of thinking about the topic.  
• Practice/strategy discussion: The facilitator prefaces the discussion with a brief overview of a particular practice or strategy she/he is using and provides a handout that includes a longer description as well as a bibliography or other resources. She/he can then pose or invite a question to stimulate and focus the conversation so that others can share their own experiences using the particular practice or strategy.

Facilitated Discussion proposals should:

1. state the conference theme you have selected
2. describe the topic or practice/strategy that you will present for discussion and why it is important to address this issue
3. indicate your experience in the topic area or in using the practice/strategy (including relevant theory, goals or purpose of the topic or practice being discussed, benchmarks of success, challenges, and findings, where applicable)
4. indicate the outcomes participants should expect from the discussion and examples of how you will prompt and sustain conversation to achieve those outcomes
5. include links to relevant Web sites or electronic copies of the materials you will share (electronic copies of materials can be provided later)
6. include students or student perspectives where relevant

Become a LEAP Featured Session in the Conference Program

This designation is intended to spotlight the innovative work of colleges and universities that are members of the LEAP Campus Action Network (CAN). CAN brings together colleges, universities, and organizations committed to liberal education; helps them to improve their efforts to ensure that all students achieve essential outcomes; and highlights their effective practices. If you would like your session to be considered for this designation, please review the eligibility section below and if eligible, check this option in the online proposal submission form.

Eligibility

• Any type of session—hands-on workshop, poster, or facilitated discussion—can be designated as a LEAP Featured Session in the conference program.
• Session presenters must be from CAN member institutions. (To find out if your campus is a member, or to find out about signing up for CAN, click here.)
• Session proposals should explicitly address: (1) one or more of the LEAP essential learning outcomes and (2) one or more of the LEAP principles of excellence (pdf) or high-impact practices identified as mechanisms for achieving the essential learning outcomes.
• Preference will be given to sessions that address how the campus practice/strategy engages a significant number of students or can be scaled to engage a significant number of students, particularly those students historically underserved by higher education.

About LEAP

Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is AAC&U’s primary vehicle for advancing and communicating about the importance of undergraduate liberal education for all students. LEAP seeks to engage the public with core questions about what really matters in college, to give students a compass to guide their learning, and to make a set of essential learning outcomes the preferred framework for educational excellence, assessment of learning, and new alignments between school and college. For more information, click here.

Writing a Strong Proposal

The proposal should consist of a session title, a brief abstract, and a longer session description accompanied by presenter names, titles, and institutional/organizational affiliations. Your proposal should be clear and concise and your session title should accurately reflect your session content. Experts in the field and AAC&U staff will review all proposals. Reviewers will look favorably upon proposals that (1) offer practical models and/or innovative strategies that reflect one of the conference themes, (2) reflect sound theory or research, (3) include findings from evaluation and assessment, (4) identify the intended audience and active learning goals for the session (including what attendees will gain from going to the session), and (5) reflect a diversity of innovations, institutions, disciplines, programmatic areas, and individuals. Joint submissions from across campuses and campus-community partners are also encouraged, and we particularly welcome student perspectives on the featured models and strategies.

Tips

• Consider how your work might be useful to individuals at different types of institutions and/or those serving different student populations.
• Indicate if your session will: (1) combine the work of more than one institution, (2) illustrate perspectives of different organizational roles (e.g., faculty, department chairs, student affairs personnel, academic advisors, librarians, students), or (3) focus on a specific audience.
• Include facilitators who bring diverse perspectives and life experiences to the topic or issue your proposal addresses. AAC&U is committed to presenting conferences where sessions and the communities of participants reflect the diversity of our campuses.
• Show how your session will be interactive. AAC&U Network conferences strive to engage participants in reflection, discussion and application activities during sessions. Please do not plan to read a paper.
• Provide a clear sense of how your session will unfold and be prepared to discuss what worked, what did not, and how you addressed challenges along the way.
• “Show and tell” submissions that have little or no applicability to other institutions will not be considered.
• Present work that has proven effective and is well beyond the planning stages.

Below is a sample session title and abstract that clearly states the issue to be explored, provides supporting evidence, and discusses what participants should expect from their attendance. Your longer session description should provide greater detail about these aspects of the session.

Searching for Faculty of Color and Sustaining their Presence on Campus
Recent studies have shown that institutional context affects not only searches for faculty of color but also the socialization processes through which these faculty members negotiate their own cultural backgrounds alongside newly forged identities within the academy. In this session, the facilitators will: (a) highlight emerging practices at institutions that successfully recruit and sustain faculty of color; (b) recommend strategies for institutions to increase the presence of faculty of color; and (c) share a set of socialization experiences of linguistic-minority women faculty. Participants will explore implications for creating a “multi-contextual” campus culture that validates the importance of different ways of thinking and learning, and they will share their own institutional experiences and promising strategies related to the recruitment and success of faculty of color.

How to Submit a Proposal

Electronic Submission
Online proposal submission form
Please submit your proposal online by filling in each field of the submission form as directed. If you cannot submit the proposal electronically or encounter technical difficulties, please contact Siah Annand at Annand@aacu.org or 202.387.3760 ext. 802.

Deadline
Please submit your proposal by Midnight Pacific Time, Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

Notification
You should receive an automatic message indicating receipt of your proposal when submitted. If you do not receive this message, we may not have received your proposal. Please e-mail Siah Annand at Annand@aacu.org to confirm receipt of proposal.

Acceptance
You will receive notification about the status of your proposal by Mid October.

Registration Fees
All session facilitators at the conference are responsible for the appropriate conference registration fees, travel, and hotel expenses. Please be sure all individuals in your proposal have this information and can be available to present at any time throughout the event. Presentation times range from Thursday, March 25, 2010 beginning at 8:30 p.m. through Saturday, March 27 at 12:00 noon.

Resources for Attendees of Your Session
Conference participants like to have resource materials to help them implement and/or share new ideas when they return to campus. In an effort to conserve natural resources, and increase the potential for active participation in your session, we strongly encourage facilitators to provide us with online resources one month in advance of the conference.

If your proposal pertains to a project, program, course, or other feature for which there is (or will be) descriptive materials available on the Web or electronically, please provide the URL address or e-document with your proposal, (or when they become available before the conference). AAC&U’s Web site will include these links when we post the program. After the conference, all presenters will be asked to provide additional electronic resources to make available to conference participants.

Final Reminders
Please complete all fields including information pertaining to all additional facilitators.

• Please include links to supplemental materials, if available.
• Please remember that by submitting a proposal, you agree to:
• Register and pay conference fees if the proposal is accepted
• Inform your co-facilitators about the proposal’s status and the need for all facilitators to pay the conference registration fees and be available throughout the event to present your work as scheduled.

Dates to Remember

• September 8, 2009: Proposals due to AAC&U
• Mid October: Proposal acceptance notification

LINKS

About the Conference:
  Overview
  Planning Committee
 

Conference Features:
  Brochure (pdf)
  Highlights
  List of Attendees
  Program (pdf)
  Schedule at a Glance
  Workshops

Call for Proposals:
  About the Call

About Registration:
  Information
  Online Form
 

Hotel Details

Faculty Podcasts:
  2009
  2006
 

Past Meetings:
  2009
  2006