Happy first day of class! This is always an exciting and peculiar time, when breaks are always too short, and there’s a tension between wanting to hold on to unstructured time and the pull to prepare for everything starting up right now.
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With my longtime love for the Muppets, I always hope that the start of the semester feels something like Kermit and Fozzie in The Muppet Movie on a road trip: light and fun, shaped by the simple act of moving forward together, with the sense that uncertainty is not isolation. There is something grounding here, particularly right now, for us when long-standing institutions, cultural reference points, and the ways we teach and learn feel increasingly in flux.
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Holding anticipation and familiarity together—the energy of what lies ahead paired with the presence of a friend and compassion for one another, even as they face (in their case, literal) forks in the road—feels like the best way to start the semester. I hope it's an amazing one!
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Coming Up in the Faculty Hub
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Beginning Friday, January 16
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Beginning Thursday, January 22
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If you are still thinking about course policies and AI statements for your syllabi this semester, I’ve created an AI Syllabus and Policy Language Assistant that builds on an open-source repository of AI syllabus statements curated by Lance Eaton. The tool uses those examples as a starting point to help faculty reflect on learning goals, assessment priorities, and disciplinary context in order to generate clearer syllabi and assignment-level language. The goal is to support intentional, course-specific AI policies—limiting AI use, allowing it in specific ways, or clearly explaining why AI is not part of a course. Check out the resource here (and please let us know if it’s helpful)!
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Web of Inquiry Course Design Series: Written Communication & FYS or QDL
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Join us and Libby Gruner (Professor of English, Director of FYS and Writing Across the Curriculum) for a faculty development series designed for those currently developing or revising a Written Communication or FYS course in the new Web of Inquiry curriculum. This four-part workshop series begins Friday, February 6, at noon. Each 75-minute session will explore course objectives, offer practical strategies for assignment and activity design, and include ongoing discussion of how generative AI intersects with writing instruction. Participants who attend all four sessions will receive a $1,000 stipend. Find out more and register here.
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Or consider joining Andrew Bell of the Faculty Hub for a faculty development series designed for those currently developing or revising a course to carry the Quantitative Data Literacy (QDL) attribute in the new Web of Inquiry curriculum. This series, beginning on Wednesday, February 11, at noon, will include four 60-minute sessions, including opportunities to talk with students about what they are looking for in QDL courses and to workshop proposals and syllabi with colleagues. Participants who complete all four sessions will also receive a $1,000 stipend. Learn more and sign up here.
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We are always looking for new and exciting projects and collaborations. Feel free to contact us.
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