The Committee on Teaching and Scholarship is pleased to announce the return of Faculty Development Day which will be a virtual event on May 11, 2021. The schedule and number of programs are still to be determined. However, the committee is now accepting proposals for 45-minute sessions on topics related to the keynote theme or on a topic of interest to you and your peers. Please email a title, brief program description, whether you prefer to have it recorded, and any other requests to tas@up.edu by April 1.
The keynote theme is “Building Trust and Finding Encounters: Frameworks for Respectful Engagement with Our Students and with Each Other.” The presenters are Professor Loretta J. Ross, Smith College and Simon Aihiokhai, University of Portland.
Keynote Abstract:
As faculty members at the University of Portland prepare students to respond to the needs of an interconnected world, it is essential to navigate the terrain of increasingly globalized and diverse identities and to build trust. Our multiple identities: race, class, gender, religion, ability and other salient aspects influence how we view and react within our local, national and global spaces. Faculty members have the opportunity to learn about their students who come from diverse backgrounds and experiences, to de-colonize their curricula, and to teach in culturally responsive and relevant ways. We all need to learn to communicate with those whose identities are embedded within different political, cultural, and religious or secular worldviews by seeking encounters with humility and by building trust through these encounters. Engagement with multiple perspectives is the hallmark of an educated person, and understanding how our identities as well as belief systems, both religious and secular, influence our institutions, cultures, and policies, as well as our own disciplinary perspectives is a critical undertaking. Three pillars will form the basis of the keynote: Trust, Encounter, Knowledge.
More details are available on the Faculty Development Day moodle site.