Faculty Workshop

2021 Fall Faculty Workshop

Thursday, August 19, 2021

8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Welcome and Welcome back!

I am excited for this new academic year to begin and look forward to seeing you this Thursday morning at the Fall Faculty Workshop! I sincerely hope that the summer months provided you with the time and space to relax, re-energize, and simply enjoy some memorable moments with those you love.

The workshop takes place in the Harre Union Ballroom. Everyone who attends must wear a mask. The rooms will open at 8:30 a.m. at which time you can catch up with your colleagues and enjoy some coffee and breakfast items. The formal presentation will begin at 9:00 a.m. This year, we will remain in the ballrooms for the entire workshop and I encourage you to bring a laptop, tablet, or smartphone so you can participate electronically during a couple of presentations.

The workshop will open with greetings from President Padilla and Provost Johnson, followed by an interactive presentation on the new strategic planning process. Kevin Goebbert, executive director of strategic planning, and Joe Bognar, chair of the strategic planning committee, will lead the strategic planning portion of our workshop and will be using Top Hat. Instructions for logging into Top Hat can be found below. If you used this previously, please read the instructions because you will need to log in as a student (not an instructor).

Byron Martin, interim assistant vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion, will present a session titled “On the Road to Building a Culturally Responsive Classroom and Curriculum.” During that session, you will work with your tablemates to record new ideas and strategies for making our classes more culturally responsive. Following Byron’s presentation, Bharath Ganesh-Babu, special assistant to the provost for summer programs and enrollment, will talk briefly about our work with the online course sharing consortium known as Acadeum, and Allison Urbanczyk, university registrar, will demonstrate ways to better utilize the service desk system and introduce you to our new academic planning and registration interface – Ellucian Self-Service. Self-Service will be used this semester for student advising and registration for spring and summer 2022 classes.

If you would like to eat lunch with your colleagues, we will have vouchers for you to pick up. They are good for a free lunch in Founders Cafe, on the first floor of the Union. You can get your lunch and them move outdoors or to another spot and continue the day’s conversations (please return all dining items to Founders)!

Finally, I would like to work with a group of interested faculty to plan the spring 2022 faculty workshop. If you are interested in that work, please email me at lissa.yogan@valpo.edu.

Looking forward to seeing you in person!

Lissa Yogan, Ph.D.
Assistant Provost for Faculty Affairs