Developing and Supporting a Resilient Faculty
Location information:
This year's event will be held at the Eberhard Center, on Grand
Valley State University's Pew Campus, at 301 West Fulton Street.
Click here to view a map. (.pdf)
If you walk from the College, it is .7 miles, 13 minutes. If you drive:
- Main parking is available at the Fulton Lot, #15, across Fulton Street under the overpass.
- Overflow parking is available in the Watson lot, #20, on Front Street near Butterworth.
- The Eberhard Lot #13, just outside the Eberhard Center, has 8 handicapped spaces on a first-come, first served basis.
Agenda
8:15 – 9:00 AM Registration & Continental BreakfastALL FACULTY MUST SIGN IN FOR THE DAY
9:00 – 9:25 AM Welcome
9:25 – 10:15 AM Keynote
10:30 – 11:30 AM Workshop Session 1
11:45 – 12:45 PM Workshop Session 2
12:45 – 1:30 PM Lunch
1:30 – 2:30 PM Report Out
2:30 – 2:45 PM Closing Remarks
*Session registration is currently
closed. If you have not preregistered for your breakout
sessions, please do so on the morning of Learning Day.
Faculty Learning Day, January 4, 2012 offers faculty members an opportunity to learn from one another and guests about the characteristics necessary for being resilient teachers and to share examples of resilience-promoting teaching and service. Specifically, the event seeks to suggest strategies to faculty for how to engage a diverse student population—not only because of the variation of learning styles, but also because of the “new social morbidities” experienced by contemporary community college students. For example, today’s community college students are more likely than previous generations of community college students to experience violence, drug and alcohol abuse, unplanned pregnancy, and depression; lack of access to reliable health information and health care; changing family structures, unemployment or underemployment, and poverty.
Teaching these students requires faculty to welcome in the “whole student.” This challenge has significant implications for faculty—and in many ways has changed what it means to be a faculty member.
Resilience has been described as the ability to bounce back, even in the face of adversity. Scholars have indicted that there are seven senses that contribute to three broad constructs of resiliency:
Confidence
A sense of self-worth and ability to contribute A sense of independence and control over one’s life
Character
A sense of self-awareness A sense of competence and mastery
Connections
A sense of safety and structure A sense of closeness and relationships A sense of belonging and group membership
College is a perfect - and perhaps the last time to promote resiliency among large peer groups. For this reason, colleges and universities share a unique opportunity to build capacity among students so that they can contribute to an informed, thoughtful, and civil community. However, promoting resiliency among students requires faculty to simultaneously teach content and build learner capacity. These two necessarily intense activities can challenge even the most patient educators.
