Minutes of the Committee on Teaching & Learning Meeting
for Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001

Present: Fay Akindes, Jerry Greenfield, Penny Lyter, Mary Power, Skelly Warren. Excused: Lynn Carlson, Laura Gellott, Nicole Palkowski. Guests: Bill Blanchard, Al Crist.

The meeting started at 2 p.m.

Announcement: The Committee on Teaching and Learning was awarded $1000 by OPID's Spring 2002 Conference Development Grant Fund. The grant was written by Laura Gellott on behalf of the Committee and will subsidize the Third Annual Conference on Teaching and Learning in May, 2002.

The Committee reflected on the Fall Mini Conference on Teaching and Learning, held on Friday, Nov. 16, in Union 104-6. Written evaluations by participants and group report highlights were circulated and discussed. (Exit interviews with graduating communication students, conducted by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz as a follow-up to the Fall Mini-Conference, were also circulated.) The Committee noted how the 75 faculty/staff participants at the Fall Mini-Conference represented a wide range of departments. There were no participants, however, from the School of Business. Jerry suggested the Committee contact Dean Wafa and ask his suggestions on how future conferences can meet the teaching and learning concerns of Business faculty.

Discussion of the Fall Mini-Conference generated the following ideas:

• Revive conversations between UW-Parkside faculty/staff and area high school teachers, particularly in areas of English and math.
• Promote basic standards across the curriculum by including a set of academic expectations and classroom etiquette in course syllabi and in public spaces, such as bulletin boards.
• Videotape live performances of professors and students enacting inappropriate and "corrected" behaviors; videotape could be used in first-year student orientations.
• Continue the dialogue started at the Fall Mini-Conference by hosting "First Friday" brown bag sessions where faculty/staff can meet informally and talk about teaching and learning.
• Showcase "Best Practices" - provocative demonstrations of exemplary teaching approaches - at the Spring Mini-Conference on Friday, March 1, 2002. Issue a "Call for 'Best Practices' Proposals" from UW-Parkside faculty/staff. Presentations would be followed by collaborative brainstorming sessions addressing specific problems, such as developing course syllabi or active learning activities.

Fay reported on a recent brown bag session with the "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Group," an informal group of faculty/staff who attended recent Faculty College and OPID seminars. The Group suggested inviting Carnegie Scholar Lendol Calder, history professor at Augustana College, to share his teaching scholarship at UW-Parkside. The Committee endorsed the idea; Fay offered to apply for a grant from the Lectures and Fine Arts Committee to cover his honorarium. Al Crist agreed to provide budgetary support from his office.

The next meeting was scheduled for Friday, Dec. 14, 1 pm to 2 pm.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:10 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Fay Yokomizo Akindes