Minutes

a.    Mike Uttendorfer and Dan Quigley reported on their meeting with the Dean’s council.  In addition to asking the Dean’s to promote the group, they also received supportive comments from Provost Pizer and Associate Provost Turkel.  Provost Pizer did note that, of the 15 members of the consortium that had set up Ning accounts, all were known to be actively engaged in efforts to improve teaching and learning.  He asked that the group focus on recruiting faculty who were less engaged in our mission.

b.    The group brainstormed means of promoting the Consortium and the Ning.  Dan Quigley agreed to send a broadcast message out to the group with instructions on how each member could invite other faculty to join.

c.    Dan Quigley then opened the discussion to the set up of the Ning.  He mentioned that he would like to see a collection of resources for faculty to make the Ning a “first look” source for faculty who had particular issues they wanted to address.  Hi-Yin Hsu noted that such a list would be even more useful if individual faculty connected resources each used to specific class activities on the member’s own page.  This raised the issue of educating Ning members on how to use the Ning and encouraging them to enhance each one’s own page.

d.    The group discussed ways to provide problem-based workshops for faculty.  The idea was to provide busy faculty with small focused instructions on how to improve one lesson, or help solve one teaching problem. 

e.    The group then discussed other possible initiatives, including becoming involved in some official capacity with the Summer Core revision workshops and new faculty orientation.

f.    After Pizza, the meeting adjourned at 2 pm.