Educational and Professional Development Commitments
Teaching as Community Property
As Lee Shulman argues in “Teaching as Community Property” (1993), we must discuss our pedagogy openly, instead of letting teaching become an isolated act that occurs behind closed doors. A commitment to teaching as community properly means encouraging public discussion of teaching practices, but I also believe it is important to create opportunities to make the university feel like a community. Working in academia can be an isolating experience, especially in the humanities, which too often discourage collaborative work in favor of individual projects. The academic community is not something that can be taken for granted. It must be carefully fostered. This means that we must develop programs that that aim to make the university a welcoming place for students, faculty, and staff from underrepresented populations.
Interdisciplinary Conversations to Spur Innovation and Self-Reflection
I have been fortunate enough to both attend and help develop educational development workshops and seminars that bring together instructors or aspiring instructors from multiple disciplines. I have observed that the interdisciplinary conversations that these programs allowed provided opportunities for participants to reflect on the disciplinary norms of their classrooms and consider teaching practices they might not normally consider. Reflecting on the practices used in classrooms within other disciplines provides an opportunity for instructors to better understand their own assumptions about their class, their students, and their own identity as instructors.
Educational and Professional Development Experience
Preparing Future Faculty Program Assistant
The 2021 Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) Seminar was a five-week remote blended (synchronous and asynchronous) seminar conducted by the University of Michigan’s Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. It aims were to prepare doctoral candidates for the academic job search and success in their subsequent faculty positions. As Program Assistant, I had many responsibilities: assisting with curriculum planning and materials development, to make sure they meet the needs of graduate students; selecting participants from the application pool; compiling data on participants’ backgrounds and goals for the seminar; reaching out to guest speakers; acting as a liaison between the seminar and participants; coordinating visits to other campuses; evaluating attendance and assignments; and drafting the final report on the program’s successes and opportunities for improvement. As the only facilitator with a background in the humanities, I was heavily involved in curriculum design and the creation of content for the 2021 PFF seminar. In particular, I was the lead facilitator for the sessions on equitable and inclusive teaching.
A slightly excerpted reenactment of the presentation on equitable and inclusive teaching I designed can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tE7-kHIyA.
Below, you will find feedback participants provided about my work in the seminar:
“Nick did a great job presenting important introductory content.”
“Nick did a great job! Every transition was set perfectly.”
2021, University of Michigan
2020, University of Michigan
Preparing Future Faculty Program Assistant
The 2020 Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) Seminar was a five-week seminar conducted by the University of Michigan’s Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. It aims were to prepare doctoral candidates for the academic job search and success in their subsequent faculty positions. The Program Assistant had many responsibilities: assisting with curriculum planning and materials development, to make sure they meet the needs of graduate students; selecting participants from the application pool; compiling data on participants’ backgrounds and goals for the seminar; reaching out to guest speakers; acting as a liaison between the seminar and participants; coordinating visits to other campuses; evaluating attendance and assignments; and drafting the final report on the program’s successes and opportunities for improvement. In most years, the seminar is conducted in person, and one of the Program Assistant’s responsibilities is also to facilitate the daily coordination of the meetings. However, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic required the program to pivot quickly to an asynchronous format, with optional synchronous components.
More information on my experience as PFF Program Assistant in 2020 can be found in the article the PFF team wrote and published in To Improve the Academy in 2021, titled “In Search of Silver Linings: Strategies for Preparing Future Faculty During a Global Pandemic” (doi.org/10.3998/tia.17063888.0039.306).
Below, you will find feedback participants provided about my work in the seminar:
“Nick was super helpful and kind.”
“Nick's performance [was] really good.”
“Nick [was] awesome!”