OPD
Teaching and Learning
To recognize the leadership of William M. Plater, executive vice chancellor and dean of the faculties at IUPUI from 1987 to 2006, 112 participants gathered to attend the first Institute on the Future of Learning on September 22, 2006. Local and national experts on community engagement, undergraduate research, and the federal commission on higher education discussed the implications of recent trends in higher education for IUPUI. In addition to remarks by William M. Plater, speakers included Gerald L. Bepko, IUPUI; George Kuh, IU Bloomington; Richard Meister, De Paul University; John Mateja, Murray State University; and Diane Oblinger, EDUCAUSE. The event was organized by the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Center for Research and Learning, the Center on Integrating Learning, and the Center for Service and Learning.
In fall 2006, the Center for Teaching and Learning also hosted three new all-day workshops that drew an average of 70 participants to each event:
Power Up Your Pedagogy: Exploring Emerging Technologies provided faculty with innovative ways to introduce technology into their courses. Classroom response systems, Breeze web conferencing, blogs, wikis, and Second Life were just some of the new tools that were demonstrated. Seventeen IUPUI faculty and staff members participated as session presenters or facilitators and shared their expertise in integrating instructional technologies.
Online Teaching: It’s Not Just for Techies Anymore allowed faculty the opportunity to spend time with colleagues engaged in online teaching and to explore tools, tips and strategies for effective online pedagogy. Discussions included best practices in online teaching, creating social presence and encouraging interactivity, assessing student learning, and using technology and Oncourse CL to enhance online courses.
Don McCabe, founding president of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University and a nationally recognized expert on academic integrity issues in higher education, delivered the keynote address at Building a Culture of Academic Integrity, a symposium CTL co-sponsored with University Library and the Office of the Dean of Students. IUPUI faculty and staff offered nine additional sessions on topics such as establishing values and professional standards, designing assignments that encourage integrity, modeling ethical research, and using civic engagement to promote academic integrity.
Emphasizing the Center for Teaching and Learning’s commitment to diversity, this year’s E.C. Moore Symposium was organized around the theme of Multiculturalism Matters: Educating for a Global Society. Shaun Harper, assistant professor and research associate in The Center for The Study of Higher Education at The Pennsylvania State University, was the featured speaker. Best known for his research on African American male students on college and university campuses, Dr. Harper’s address centered on inclusive teaching. One hundred and thirty faculty and staff attended, and 20 IUPUI faculty provided presentations and poster sessions that focused on methods for fostering multicultural learning in the classroom.
Diversity in a global context provided this year’s theme for the 2nd Annual Multicultural Teaching and Learning Institute Exploring Globalization in the Classroom. The Center for Teaching and Learning partnered with the IUPUI Office for International Affairs to host the event that featured Susan Sutton, associate dean of international programs and Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology as the keynote speaker. Dr. Sutton’s presentation highlighted IUPUI’s increasing global partnerships and growing numbers of international students. Concurrent sessions addressed topics that included stressors affecting international students, mentoring international students, addressing second language proficiency issues, academic ethics across cultures, the basics of cross-cultural communication, study abroad, and the global crossroads.
The Center on Integrating Learning reported that377 students participated in fall 2006 Themed Learning Communities (TLCs), and that participating students had significantly higher first semester grade point averages in comparison to non-participating* students, even while controlling for all significant background characteristics, First-Year Seminar participation, and Summer Bridge participation. The TLC students had an adjusted first semester grade point average of 2.75 compared to an adjusted rate of 2.53 for non-participants.
The number of TLCs has increased from the original 7 in 2003 to an expected 26 for the 2007-2008 academic year, and 30 TLC instructional team members were identified by students for their contributions to student retention. Overall, one out of three nominations of librarians, faculty, and academic advisors were part of TLC instructional teams.
The Center on Integrating Learning (COIL) also sponsored two workshops byDr. Kathleen McKinney, professor of sociology at Illinois State University, entitled Enhancing Learning Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: An Example and Practical Suggestions. The first workshop presented results of a SoTL project funded at Illinois State by the Carnegie Scholars Program to examine how sociology majors learn their discipline. Dr. McKinney also addressed the relevance of her approach for instructors from other disciplines interested in further enhancing the learning of their students The second workshop engaged participants in a mini-workshop focused on the act of "doing SoTL.”
COIL’s Community of Practice Scholars (CoPs) sponsored or co-sponsored an additional 17 public events and eight formal public presentations to campus and national groups.
Research, Scholarship and Creativity
The Executive Director of the Center for Research and Learning (CRL) was elected to a three-year term as one of 24 councilors to the governing board of the Division of Undergraduate Research Program Directors on the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and also to a second three-year term to the Board of Governors of the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR).
Progress continued on the CRL’s $435,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop and use IUPUI’s electronic portfolio to assess student learning as a result of participating in an undergraduate research experience. Members of the NSF grant’s consortium recently agreed to approve a rubric for evaluating undergraduate research projects and will expand the project to the 19 member institutions in the coming year.
Two new courses were created to help students in the undergraduate research program explore various dimensions of the research process. The Diversity Scholars Research Program (DSRP) and the McNair Scholars Program each offered a new Research Scholars Symposium in spring 2007 under the Honors H399 course number. Topics in the DSRP program included understanding the scientific method of inquiry, types of research, the role of the mentor, basic statistical concepts, ethical issues in research, and undergraduate research opportunities. The one-credit McNair Research Seminar explored issues of research ethics, risk management, graduate student life, graduate mentor choice, university culture, and the life of the scholar.
In the summer of 2007 almost ninety IUPUI undergraduate students participated in formal programs that engaged them in faculty-mentored research and professional development activities during eight to ten-week sessions.
Eighty-four students received University Research Opportunities Program (UROP) project and travel or conference grants during 2006-2007. Of these, 61 were research project and travel grants and 28 were conference grants. Five students received both a project and a conference grant. (These did not include funds issued for NCUR which averaged $1000 each.) The program has grown tremendously and currently has over thirty proposals under review in a competitive process.
Seventeen IUPUI undergraduate research students had abstracts accepted and were supported to attend the 21st National Council on Undergraduate Research Conference (NCUR) at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA.
The Center for Research and Learning and the Preparing Future Faculty Program (PFF) collaborated to establish a new Alliances for Graduate Education in the Professoriate (AGEP) Connection Program, supported by the National Science Foundation and the IUPUI Research and Sponsored Programs Office, to provide scholarships to current PFF scholars and PFF alumni who agree to mentor small groups of underrepresented undergraduate students to encourage them to pursue graduate education.
Advocacy
The Office for Multicultural Professional Development (OMPD) revised the annual workshop, But We Can’t Find Any: Recruiting Less-represented Faculty with details on the newly established Supporting the Recruitment of Underrepresented Faculty (SRUF) funds. This fund is specifically designed to support deans’ recruitment of underrepresented faculty when “any gender or race in a department is less than 15% of the total tenured and tenure-track faculty in the department and the nationally available pool of candidates in that discipline is also less than 15%.” OMPD, in partnership with the Chancellor’s Office, presented two workshops during the fall 2006 semester where department and program chairs, deans, and search committee members attended. To date ten applications for SRUF funds were submitted, and seven of those applications have been accepted.
In fall 2006, OMPD presented a new three-workshop series entitled the Diverse Researcher’s Forum that highlighted one scholar of color at each session. This more intimate version of the Symposium Highlighting the Research of Faculty, Staff, and Students of Color allowed the campus community to learn more about each scholar’s research and gave scholars the opportunity to share their research and dialogue with other tenured and tenure-track faculty.
The Office for Women and the Office for Professional Development joined the IU School of Medicine in hosting a day of workshops on February 2, 2007 by Virginia Valian, a nationally recognized expert on gender equity. Dr. Valian is a Professor of Psychology and Linguistics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and co-director of the Gender Equity Project at CUNY which is supported by a National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award. She presented a breakfast workshop for deans and chairs and two afternoon presentations open to the campus. 29 leaders attended the breakfast workshop and over 100 faculty, staff and students attended the afternoon sessions.
To celebrate the Office for Women’s 10th Anniversary and to honor supporters, the Office hosted a reception on December 14, 2006 attended by 80 people. To commemorate the activities of the office and the Commission on Women and to honor significant women leaders who created and supported the office, a 10th Anniversary Celebration Luncheon was held on April 10, 2007 at the University Place Hotel. Former OFW directors Kathleen Warfel Hull and Kimberly Quaid de Cordon were honored among others, and a keynote address was given by Dr. Ora Pescovitz, President and CEO of Riley Children’s Hospital. 140 people attended.
* Note: Only beginning Freshmen participating in Fall 2005 or Fall 2006 First-Year Seminars, depending on the year, were included in the analysis. This method served to control for impacts academic performance due to First-Year Seminar participation. Thus, the non-participant group includes students enrolled in First-Year Seminars, but not in TLCs. All TLC students were enrolled in a First-Year Seminar.
**Source: Dean of the Faculties Office, 2006.
