Campaign update

CAMPAIGN PRIORITIES:

Ensuring Access Propelling the Liberal Arts and Engineering Developing Students Beyond the Classroom The Union Fund

CENTER FOR FACULTY EXCELLENCE

Six years ago, a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation enabled Union to create a faculty development framework that emphasizes the teacher-scholar model and supports faculty members across the lifespan of their careers.

Today, the College is preparing to establish its new center for faculty excellence. Gifts to this initiative will provide the financial resources necessary to facilitate programs and opportunities that sustain both the teaching and the research activities of the faculty.

Focused on the acquisition of student-centered pedagogies, effective course design and the integration of research and teaching, the new center is not a bricks-and-mortar project. Rather, it will offer a variety of programs and professional development opportunities designed to ensure Union’s long-term ability to attract, reward and retain faculty members who are both leading scholars in their fields and exceptional teachers.

“Gifts to this project will support training in inclusive pedagogy and evidence-based instructional design methods that research in the learning sciences has shown increases student learning and engagement,” said Jennifer Fredricks, dean of academic departments and programs. “We also need to elevate research and to do this, we must provide more funding for faculty travel, publishing and writing workshops and seed funding for grant applications.”

“We need to demonstrate to internal and external communities alike that teaching and research are interconnected and equally important aspects of faculty careers,” she continued. “With Mellon Foundation funding we have made great strides in providing faculty development support, but we need significant resources to sustain this invaluable work.”

Every gift to Powering Union is invested in students. To read more about the campaign and personal stories about the impact that gifts from the Union community are having, visit www.union.edu/powering

Faculty are more than just teachers,” said Kara Doyle, professor of English and director of faculty development. “They’re advisors, managers, peer counselors, mentors, leaders and scholars. A center for faculty excellence will help many more Union faculty imagine and reach their full potential in all these areas.”

Doyle, whose interests include Chaucer and old French literature, had long been dissatisfied with conventional papers and revisions to get writing skills to “stick” with students. So, she used a summer workshop through the Faculty Development Institute to design a portfolio of short writing assignments that require students to focus on two writing skills and reflect on their progress. The grade was less on individual assignments and more on students’ progress throughout the portfolio.

“Writing is like any other practiced skill, such as playing a musical instrument or a sport,” she said. “The portfolio approach encourages students to think about building and improving skills, to take a more conscious approach, to make revision an integral part of the writing process.”

“

David Cotter, professor of sociology and former director of faculty development, has been impressed that faculty at all levels of their career are dedicated to honing their craft, often with radical pedagogical changes. “People who are considered among the best teachers on our faculty—who have already won the Stillman Award for Excellence in Teaching— have been taking these workshops in order to get better than they already were.”

Many senior faculty have abandoned hour-long lectures for a more effective model: shorter sessions intermingled with applications, Cotter noted.

The need for remote teaching during the pandemic has been the impetus for faculty to “flip the classroom” and focus on more active learning. The pandemic also showed that the Faculty Development

We have been avid supporters of faculty development since founding the Byron Nichols Endowed Fellowship for Faculty Development in 2006. Adding our support to the ‘‘ Faculty Development Institute was a natural fit. The FDI’s approach encourages curiosity and risk-taking and invites faculty to ask the same of their students. The current Nichols Fellow, Nicole Theodosiou, is an FDI graduate whose experience inspired her to apply for a Nichols Fellowship grant. We could not be more proud of our support for the FDI and Nichols Endowed Fellowship for Faculty Development.’’ – Susan Maycock ’72 and Alan Maycock

Institute—with resources, technology and networks with other institutions— made Union well positioned to transform teaching, Cotter said.

In the midst of the pandemic in 2020, the first-ever virtual summer FDI workshop drew 90 Union faculty and another 66 from schools in the New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium, according to organizer Denise Snyder, director of learning technologies and environments. “Rather than thinking about all of the things we wouldn’t be able to do if we weren’t face to face the whole term, the FDI aimed to strengthen faculty thinking and confidence around what they can do differently and still meet learning goals,” Snyder said.

In 2019, faculty shared the innovations they developed through the FDI in a program called “8x8: Leaps of Faith.”

To learn more visit: https://muse.union.edu/rte/2019/05/14/8x8-leaps-of-faith-8stories-about-cultivating-complex-thinkers-for-a-messy-world/

POWERING UNION

Faculty Development Institute

Union faculty are constantly enhancing their teaching, both inside and outside the classroom. Through programs offered by the center—like the Faculty Development Institute—professors find support and encouragement that feeds not only their own drive to do and be more, but that of their students as well.

“Mathematics and Social Justice”

“This course would not have taken shape the way it has without the resources and knowledge I acquired through the Faculty Development Institute,” said Ellen Gasparovic, associate professor of mathematics. “Faculty development opportunities like this are not only energizing and revitalizing, they allow us to engage with our peers and with experts in learning technologies and pedagogies to brainstorm exciting new strategies that help us create more inclusive, effective and inspiring classrooms.”

“In this course, students will see how mathematics provides a helpful framework for turning real world issues into multi-step problems or questions that can be investigated logically and critically,” Gasparovic said. “As we study topics like probability or linear systems, we will incorporate issues of social justice, such as modeling LGBTQ+ acceptance over time; partisan and racial gerrymandering; the lottery’s role in highlighting economic disparity; and gender and racial bias in algorithms.”

Offered for the first time this fall, “Mathematics and Social Justice” is open to students of all majors, requiring no prerequisites.

“Math supplies us with the tools that enable us to quantify and analyze fundamental issues of social justice,” Gasparovic said. “Some mathematicians are designing software to be used for predictive policing. Some are designing race correction algorithms in medicine or facial recognition algorithms, both of which have been used in alarmingly discriminatory and racist ways.”

“Still others are modeling the disproportionate and devastating impact of COVID-19 on communities of color,” she added, “or testifying in Supreme Court cases regarding political redistricting and gerrymandering.”

Because math, like any powerful tool, can be used for good or ill, Gasparovic wants to provide students with a sound understanding of this dichotomy.

“I want students to have a healthy skepticism of the ‘veneer of objectivity’ that mathematics has been said to provide, but I also want them to learn how math can be used to advance equity and fairness,” she explained.

Electric City Cottage

“Faculty development is essential for the vitality of our scholarship and teaching,” said Nicole Theodosiou, associate professor of biology. “Students directly benefit from a more inclusive classroom and projects that promote agency and independence. There’s potential to create unique learning experiences and further the reach of a center for faculty excellence by taking students out of the classroom and fostering joy and purpose in their lives through an integrated residential curriculum.”

Theodosiou’s own project, Electric City Cottage, has been inspired and supported by the College’s Faculty Development Institute and the Byron A. Nichols Endowed Fellowship for Faculty Development.

Electric City Cottage is a Union College tiny house in the making. It’ll be a science classroom on wheels—and on a mission.

“The Electric City Cottage will travel around Schenectady and communicate science to the public through hands-on interactive activities and communitybuilding events and performances,” Theodosiou said. “The learning activities will be co-created by students in crossdisciplinary courses and these students will be in charge of teaching and communicating with the public in the Electric City Cottage.”

“I want to give students the space and platform to develop community leadership skills,” she continued, adding that she hopes the tiny house will eventually expand its reach into the Adirondacks and Mohawk Valley.

To design and then actually build Electric City Cottage, Theodosiou is offering three courses. The first one, “Big Plans, Tiny Houses,” was offered in fall 2020.

“Students explored local and national mobile science outreach programs and spoke to local people to identify three areas of needs in our community—food security and nutrition; mental health; and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Theodosiou said. “With this information, students designed three prototype models for our mobile tiny house.”

Students in the second course, offered in fall 2021, took those prototypes and developed a final design for the house. They also focused on science communication and created learning activities within the three areas of need.

“I’m excited that EYP—the architects and engineers who designed our new Integrated Science and Engineering Complex—will support this project. They will also work with students to develop a feasible final prototype,” said Theodosiou, who chairs the Professional Development and Education Committee for the Society of Developmental Biology. “The last course will be to build the tiny house.”

Madison Nathan ’22, who took Theodosiou’s “Big Plans, Tiny Houses” class, hopes her peers will take advantage of these courses and the opportunities they provide.

“I had never taken a class quite like this before. Besides focusing exclusively on ideating the Union tiny home, our class developed a mini project,” she said.” “We created COVID kits to hand out to members of the community, and a website with COVID resources and links to sign up for a COVID vaccine. We also partnered with local seamstresses to create adult- and child-size reusable masks.”

“I would definitely recommend getting involved in this project in some capacity,” continued Nathan, a psychology major with a double minor in biology and modern adolescence. “Whether you are interested in the engineering of a tiny home, community outreach, design or science, there is something for everyone. I can’t wait to see the Electric City Cottage come to life in the upcoming years.” U

A prototype of the Electric City Cottage, a mobile science classroom.

Learn more about Electric City Cottage on Instagram @UnionCollegeTinyHouse.