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CALS Support of Teaching and Learning Committee

Committee Members (term end date)

  • Co-Chair: Abby Drake ('26)
  • Co-Chair: Kristina Blake-Hodek ('26)
  • Jeremy Allen ('25)
  • Jeffrey Perry ('26)
  • Greg Peck ('27)
  • Yousoon Baek ('28)
  • Marvin Pritts ('28)
  • Benjamin Moss, CTI  ex officio
  • Christina Schmidt,OAP ex officio
  • Sarah Giroux, OAP, Liaison

Student Members 

  • Yiseo Rho
  • Sam Mohaptra

Structure

Eight elected faculty members, members (from the Office of Academic Programs (OAP) and the Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI)) and two undergraduate representatives.

Committee Chair: Elected annually by the committee from its faculty membership

Lengths of Terms

  • Faculty - 4 years
  • Student - 1 year

Meetings

CSTL meets monthly at 10:15-11:15 on a Friday. This meeting is scheduled to immediately follow the monthly meeting of the CALS Curriculum Committee.

 

Mission:

The CALS Support of Teaching and Learning Committee (CSTL) serves as a conduit of collaboration between the CALS teaching staff/faculty, academic leadership and instructional support within the College and the larger University. It serves to advise and recommend pedagogical approaches, communicate with and inform CALS instructional personnel as well as identify area of opportunity and need within CALS and the larger University.

Responsibilities

Maintain liaison with the College Office of Academic Programs and other University teaching support programs; communicate with the faculty on information relevant to the enhancement of teaching.

Recommended activities to accomplish this: 

  • Support a working relationship with OAP leadership/staff that can explore translating CSTL recommendations and insight into impactful actions and programmatic policies.
  • Partner with instructional leadership and support to identify approaches, products and programs that should be given greater awareness.                     
  • Support a unified CALS and University approach to communication with faculty on pedagogical and instructional information to increase effective communication within the diverse instructional communication ecosystem.
  • Laisse with and attend meetings of the CALS curriculum committee.
  • Improve awareness of CSTL. Create and enhance communication routes to CSTL to improve speed and effectiveness of identifying teaching faculty and staff concerns.
Recommend methods for promoting teaching and learning competence in faculty and teaching assistants. Develop and review programs to support the enhancement and maintenance of teaching competence in the College.

Recommended activities to accomplish this:

  • Participate in new faculty orientation and panel discussion to provide and promote an incipient pedagogical network.
  • Promote peer mentoring of new and existing teaching staff/faculty towards effective pedagogical approaches. 
  • Support the initiation of programming for excellence in mentorship for instructors and faculty of graduate and undergraduate students.
  • Support and promote graduate and undergraduate TA training programs. 
  • Support and review effectiveness of undergraduate knowledge development by OAP and the University. This could include “state of the student” messaging to improve understanding and effectiveness of student health and wellbeing pedagogy support. 
  • Provide a rotating Lunch and Learn workshop series to CALS instructional faculty that promotes efficacy of pedagogical methods and resources to improved competencies as well as inform on offices, people &/or other germane topics for academic programming and student support services.
Recommend policy and methods for constructive uses of curriculums, lesson plans and peer review and evaluation as well as student teaching survey tool in support of instruction.

Recommended activities to accomplish this:

  • Participate in mid &/or end of semester course survey tools to evaluate effective and meaningful metrics for improved instruction and promotion. Support the role of teacher evaluations in tenure and renewal.
  • Support and provide resources for curricular discussion and development across major/minors, departments/schools/programs, fields, etc.
  • Identify units of teaching responsibilities for collaborative/cooperative efforts. 
Report annually to the faculty.

To accomplish this the committee will:

  • Schedule an annual CFEC meeting report and ad hoc as needed.
  • Develop a Canvas CSTL Course page for faculty in CALS to provide 1) core mission and activity information and 2) collect and display active and archival information.

 

Webpage update July 2024