I’m writing with what I hope will be a relatively regular update on issues related to teaching and learning and student success. For those of you who don’t know me (and are wondering “How did I get on this email list?”) I am Jonathan Watts Hull, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student and Faculty Success at the USG System Office.

Student Success and Faculty Success

As part of a larger reorganization in Academic Affairs a bit over a year ago, the University System combined the Student Success and Teaching and Learning Excellence units into a single unit with me joining Denise Domizi, Director Faculty Development, and Peter Berryman, Director Faculty Development for Digital Instruction. Internally, the alignment streamlined a collaboration that was already well underway, but from the outside, it may not have made as much sense.

Much of the work on Student Success that I have been involved in at the University System over the past decade has addressed policy and structural obstacles that students face. At the same time, faculty development efforts crystalized around a constellation of broadly applicable, highly adaptive, evidence-based practices that have been demonstrated to improve student learning and outcomes. Aligning the structural and contextual approaches will, we hope, amplify our success, and help us to learn more about what works, and why.

Part of why we are embarking on a regular communication is to provide timely reminders around the resources and tools that we have created to support faculty over the past several years. Of course, I knew we would be starting out late in the academic year. Indeed, in my own teaching, early November is the point in the semester when I would begin to have elaborate plans to completely reimagine just about everything in the course. My follow through, I will allow, was not exceptional, which got me thinking that what I needed was something I could apply “right now.”  

You’ve hopefully heard a bit about Core IMPACTS, the refresh of the USG Core Curriculum. Next month we’ll dive a bit into what’s changed, what’s not, and what it means for students and faculty. We’re looking to hear faculty stories of your perspectives about General Education, in particular your thoughts about what it is about your discipline that you want students to come away with in their general education. If you have thoughts to share, you can post them on this short form.

Also:

• Mark your calendar! The USG Teaching and Learning Conference is scheduled for April 15-16, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. Registration opens in January.
• Access archived Office of Teaching and Learning Excellence webinars (including the recent series on Artificial Intelligence) are now all available on MomentumU@USG.

In the meantime, if you have questions or thoughts about this, or would like to highlight a topic for a future edition, please let me know.