Salisbury University |  Instructional Design & Delivery Newsletter | September 3, 2024

Dr. Jessica Clark, Associate Provost

Congratulations to Dr. Jessica Clark as she begins her new role as associate provost to which Instructional Design & Delivery will report. Dr. Clark began this role in July, after spending the last several years in the position of assistant provost for faculty success. As assistant provost, Dr. Clark initiated the development of Center for Faculty Development and Excellence (CAFE) and spearheaded professional development initiatives, such as the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) offerings Effective Teaching Practices and Fostering a Culture of Belonging, faculty fellowships around Open Pedagogy, and various collaborations with the Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation.

Dr. Clark has well-documented experience mentoring students and faculty (including as past co-director of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity), leading and participating in faculty development groups, serving on a national council related to high-impact practices (Council on Undergraduate Research), and serving as co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation-funded collaboration across five University System of Maryland (USM) institutions to diversify biosciences faculty. Dr. Clark also serves on the USM Academic Transformation Advisory Council.

Dr. Clark brings a strong record of faculty and administrative successes at SU, and she has demonstrated innovative and thoughtful approaches in her work in the Office of the Provost. Under her leadership in this new role, SU will have a tremendous opportunity to grow our support for teaching and learning, faculty affairs, and leadership development.

Faculty Friday: September 6 • 4-6 p.m.

Faculty Fridays, hosted by the Faculty Senate, are opportunities for faculty and academic staff to socialize with colleagues. The first Faculty Friday will be held on Friday, September 6, 4-6 p.m. in the Faculty Lounge (on the 2nd floor of the Guerrieri Academic Commons). Hors-d’oeuvres and drinks (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic) will be provided; a cash bar will be available if anyone wishes to have more than one alcoholic beverage.

During this event, meet with the facilitators of this year's Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) to learn more about their FLC and how to join.

2024-2025 Faculty Learning Communities

A Faculty Learning Community (FLC) is a cross-disciplinary faculty and staff group of 8 to 12 members engaging in an active, collaborative program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning, and with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, interdisciplinary efforts, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and community building.

The 2024-2025 Faculty Learning Communities are:

To join an FLC, please visit the 2024-2024 FLC website for the community description and to contact the facilitators of the desired community.

Call for Participation: Fostering a Culture of Belonging

Ensure students and colleagues feel seen, heard and valued by participating in the Fostering a Culture of Belonging eight-week online course. This course equips faculty and campus professionals with evidence-based practices that expand on "Embracing Diversity in Your Learning Environment," a key topic in ACUE's Effective Teaching Practice Framework. The course contains the following four modules that are fully online and asynchronous, and each module takes approximately two-three hours to complete:

Eligibility: The FCB course is open to all Salisbury University faculty and staff

Important Dates:

Questions can be directed to Dr. Jessica Clark, associate provost.

Faculty Resource: National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) 

Salisbury University has institutional membership to the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) network that helps faculty achieve extraordinary writing and research productivity while maintaining a full and healthy life off campus. The NCFDD also has a Toolkit for teaching in tough times that includes strategies for classroom incivility, preparing for controversial conversations, finding joy as an academic and an informative dialogue about "Managing Stress in Stressful Times."

 All faculty have access NCFDD resources – so how do you participate?

First go to the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) website and click on Services, then select Our Institutional Members from the drop-down menu.

Then select Salisbury University from the list of institutional members.

You will then be asked to fill out profile information, such as adding your SU email to confirm your membership and selecting a password to access your NCFDD account. Once you have finished establishing your account, you will be taken to a dashboard where you can start exploring NCFDD resources.

Check Your Discussions in MyClasses

If you utilize discussion forums in MyClasses and want students to reply to each other, make sure they are set up to support threaded replies! This is a setting that can be easily checked:

And remember to SAVE your settings (scroll down and click the red Save button).

Video Tip: Identifying and Fixing Broken Course Links 

At the beginning of the semester, it is important to review your course content to make sure that you are not accidentally directing students to broken links in your course. This may happen when linked content is removed or as an indicator that a course resource is unpublished (which may be momentarily intentional and may not need to be "fixed" right away). Please review the Validating Course Links video for information about:   

Please contact your department's instructional designer if you have any questions or need any assistance running through your link validator results!