First Year Program:
Session Schedule and Descriptions

THE (TENTATIVE) 2005-2006 PROGRAM

Session #1: The Students, Sunday, 21 August 2005,
Social Hour/Dinner, 5:00pm-8:00pm, South Commons, University Center

In this inaugural meeting, attendees will mingle with other faculty new to the campus during a social hour and dinner.

We'll then, briefly, overview the First Year Program before taking an engaging look at whom it is we teach. We'll compare the demographic make-up of the UW-Whitewater student body with other regional comprehensive universities, and examine sets of self-reported behaviors from incoming freshmen and graduating seniors. By the end of the session, first year faculty will have a better understanding of:

  1. who enrolls here, where they come from, and why they chose Whitewater;
  2. attitudinal sets endemic to the student body as a whole; and
  3. what campus services are available to assist students with academic and personal problems.

Session #2: Hands-On Campus Technology, Thursday, 25 August 2005
Continental Breakfast, 10:00am-Noon, McGraw Hall, Room 19 (General Access Lab)

Few tools serve the contemporary faculty member as readily as technology. This session will familiarize faculty with on-line services available to faculty to assist them in managing their courses and other professional responsibilities.

Through a series of hands-on and interactive exercises, attendees will meet and work with staff of Technology and Information Services, getting an early start on using or refining use of:

  1. Web-based email and calendar services, web-storage & publishing space;
  2. Desire2Learn (the campus course management system
  3. Accessing campus files, student rosters, and printing services; and
  4. Other emergent questions and issues.

Session #3: The Purple Book, Thursday, 1 September 2005
Lunch, Noon-2:00pm, South Commons, University Center

During the first of the luncheon meetings, Provost Richard Telfer will overview the Purple Book process—introducing first year faculty to UW-Whitewater's vehicle for chronicling professional accomplishments relevant to reappointment, promotion and tenure.

By the end of the session, first year faculty will have a sense of the purposes and timelines relevant to the Purple Book, and have:

  1. developed an understanding of the format and contents of the Document of Expectations, the Applicant's Narrative, and the Performance Evaluation Form;
  2. derived a sense of how to best document teaching/job performance, research/creative activities, and professional and public service efforts; and
  3. developed questions to ask his/her chair relevant to individual departmental use of the Purple Book.

Session #4: Reflective College Teaching, Friday, 7 October 2005
Lunch, Noon-2:00pm, South Commons, University Center

Teaching requires instructors to make hundreds of planned and impromptu decisions—decisions that directly affect what, if, and how students learn. As such, it is a process that is particularly subject to critical reflection.

Dr. Brenda O'Beirne, winner of the 1999 W.P. Roseman Award for Excellence in Teaching, will lead participants through a structured discussion of what it means to be a "reflective teacher." First year faculty will leave the session with:

  1. a sense of how feedback from students and peers can be used meaningfully in the self-evaluation process;
  2. resources which can be used in guiding the self-reflection process; and
  3. a plan regarding how to make critical reflection a recurrent and beneficial part of the teaching improvement process.

Session #5: Evaluation & Grading, Friday, 4 November 2005
Lunch, Noon-2:00pm, Room 108, Esker Hall

Faculty surveys indicate that evaluating student work and assigning grades is the "most time-consuming," and "least satisfying" part of their job.

This session will encourage attendees to consider why these are prevailing sentiments, and examine methods for making assessment and evaluation methods more fair, efficient, and conducive to student learning. By the end of the session, first year faculty will:

  1. have self-assessed how their evaluation methods compare to a list of "best evaluation practices" in post-secondary settings;
  2. have developed a better understanding of how to write better objective and constructed test items and assessed the effectiveness of these items; and
  3. have considered the utility of evaluation rubrics in assessing student performance and enhancing student learning.

Session #6: Academic Assessment, Friday, 3 February 2006
Lunch, Noon-2:00pm, South Commons, University Center

The previous fifteen years in post-secondary education has been earmarked by growing institutional commitments to articulate specifically what students will learn and to evaluate the extent to which they've learned it.

This session will overview UW-Whitewater's evolving efforts to conduct academic assessment, examining what our assessment efforts, to date, reveal about student learning in general education, within academic majors, and in the graduate curriculum. Attention in the session will focus on:

  1. describing the role of academic assessment at UW-Whitewater, particularly as it relates to the audit and review process and program improvement;
  2. summarizing current assessment initiatives at department and university-wide levels; and
  3. examining how faculty can become involved in supporting and refining assessment initiatives within their department or the university.

Session #7: Scholarship & Creative Activity, Friday, 3 March 2006
Lunch, Noon-2:00pm, South Commons, University Center

Tenure-track faculty from across the nation consistently report that the pressure to meet scholarly/creative expectations as the most significant "stress-producing" professional challenge they face.

In this session, first year faculty will break into groups for panel discussions led by some of UW-Whitewater's most accomplished scholars in the areas of the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, business, education and the arts. These scholars will share their perspectives and lead discussions about:


  1. how to establish and launch a profitable scholarly/creative agenda;
  2. strategies for getting more work submitted and accepted;
  3. methods for collaborating with fellow faculty and students to increase scholarly/creative output; and
  4. how best to meet scholarly/creative expectations in the UW-W environment.

Session #8: Grant Writing, Friday, 7 April 2006
Lunch, Noon-2:00pm, South Commons, University Center

Acquisitions of extramural funding at UW-Whitewater have grown to over $5.7 million/year, an increase of over 300% in the past five years. Such acquisitions are critical to not only helping the University become increasingly self-supportive, but also in permitting faculty freedom to pursing long-term research initiatives and securing release time.

This session, led by Denise Ehlen of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and faculty grant-writers, will overview and answer attendee questions about:

  1. the grant-writing and submission process;
  2. formulating fundable grant ideas and locating extramural funding sources; and
  3. services available through the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs to assist faculty with their grant-writing initiatives.