Volume V Number 4
May 1999

New Leadership in 1999-2000

The 1999-2000 academic year will bring new leadership to the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Pat Laser will take over as Facilitator of the Center and Doug Rosentrater will serve as the Center's Professional Development Consultant. Wendy Ullman, who teaches part-time in the Department of Language and Literature, has been elected to chair the Center's Advisory Board. Resource Faculty Projects will be carried out by Mary Marco and Maureen McCreadie.

Pat Laser has been on the Advisory Board of the Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning since it came into existence. She also served on the original planning committee for the Center. During the years that the Faculty Center has been in operation, Pat has frequently taken the lead in the popular Faculty Showcases that the Center sponsors. Not only has Pat contributed to program planning, she has also shared the results of her culinary efforts at several showcases. Pat's pecan pie is the best!

This year Doug Rosentrater took over as Chairperson of the Advisory Board in the spring semester, when Susan Darrah, Advisory Board Chair last year and in the fall, left to chair the Department of Language & Literature. In the fall, Doug's Resource Faculty project focused on creativity and in the spring, he offered several seminar series to which he invited the community. Doug has also taken the lead in planning the final major event scheduled this year in the Faculty Center -- the Hawaiian Luau.

This year's Professional Development Consultant, Michael Schwartz, initiated a discussion series with a focus on the learning environment. This series has been refreshing because Michael invited not only members of the faculty, but also members of all employee groups, as well as students. These gatherings have afforded wonderful opportunities to generate and exchange ideas. Michael co-chaired the original planning group of the Center and has served as Chairperson of the Advisory Board. Thank you, Michael, for your past leadership and your plans for the coming year.

Thank you very much for your endorsement of me as the new Facilitator at the Faculty Center. I am delighted to be undertaking this position and look forward to continuing to work for the Center and having the opportunity of being involved with so many fine BCCC faculty. I greatly enjoy the work the Faculty Center does and hope to continue the tradition of wonderful contributions to faculty, campus life, and the endeavor of teaching and learning. I look forward to seeing all of you early and often at the Center, and working together as we devise our programs for the upcoming year. Thank you again, and I'll be seeing you all soon!

Thank you to Maureen McCreadie. I know I speak for all faculty members on and off the Faculty Center Advisory Board when I express my untold gratitude and appreciation to Maureen for her years of fine work as our pioneering Facilitator. Maureen has taken what was just the spark of an idea some years back and turned it into a living, breathing, beautiful, productive and growing Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Maureen has worked tirelessly and caringly throughout as Facilitator, and particularly was considerate of everyone's opinion as we progressed from the Faculty Center's origin to what it is today. We have a beautiful place that is the heart of our academic campus; it enhances our campus life in many wonderful ways. All the good that it contributes is a direct and indirect outgrowth of Maureen's consistent, dedicated, and insightful influence.

I am grateful that Maureen will be continuing to be part of the Center as Advisory Board member and Resource Faculty member. Thus we will continue to gain from her expertise. Hopefully, as we go through this transition and with all of our collective efforts, the Center will continue to grow and become even more a source of peace, growth, wisdom, academic vitality and friendly exchange in the years ahead.

Summary of Accomplishments

For the first time, new full- and part-time faculty members had access to a college-wide orientation program. The Faculty Center launched this program to introduce academic resources and student services available on campus. Susan Darrah and Marilyn Puchalski were instrumental in the planning and implementation of this program, which will be offered again in the fall of 1999.

Mentoring Program

In conjunction with the Orientation Program, the Faculty Center, under the leadership of Susan Darrah and Maureen McCreadie, initiated a mentoring program to connect new faculty members with a faculty member familiar with the College's services and idiosyncracies. Faculty mentors include Robert Dodge, Bill Ford, Blaine Greenfield, Mary Ann Klicka, Lin MacGregor, Catherine McElroy, Lisa Martin, Kay Mengers, Tom O'Keefe, Marilyn Puchalski, Doug Rosentrater, Michael Schwartz, Arta Szathmary, Betty Tsai, and Joan Weiss

Faculty Showcases

Faculty Showcases are getting to be a tradition at Bucks County Community College. They provide an opportunity to enjoy good company and good food, along with the good work of our colleagues. This year's fall showcase featured the work of the IT Facilitators, Joe Walsh, Tom O'Keefe, and Maureen McCreadie. They demonstrated how technology can enhance or extend what we do in the classroom. In the spring, the focus was on creativity in the classroom. Presenters included David Brahinsky, Leticia El-Naggar, and Karen Kaplinski.

Distance Learning Roundtable Series

Faculty and staff members active or interested in distance learning met monthly to focus on the tools, challenges, and successes of teaching and learning at a distance. Georglyn Davidson led this series which offered national teleconferences as well as local conversations. The group considered issues such as retention, technological support, and copyright and privacy issues, as they relate to distance learners.

Voices, which has been meeting unofficially for more than a decade, considers issues affecting women on campus. Since the Faculty Center opened in the Cooper Homestead in 1995, Voices has met at least once each semester over dinner. This fall, thanks to Lois Gilmore and Marilyn Puchalski, who serve on the Bucks County Commissioners'> Advisory Council for Women, Voices invited members of the Council to discuss possibilities for collaboration in developing a women's center on campus. This spring the group relaxed a bit with dinner and a movie.

Other Series

In addition to what is listed above and in the pages covering Resource Faculty projects, Professional Development offerings, and the Research Project, the Faculty Center also offered roundtable sessions on Integration of Knowledge courses and the sabbatical process. Michael Hennessey led a book discussion series, Doug Rosentrater offered The Camelot Lectures, departments held departmental interviews, celebrations, and interviews, and committees met and held town meetings all in the Faculty Center.

Report from the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning's Professional Development Consultant, Michael Schwartz.

As this year's Professional Development Consultant for the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, I helped to support and advance professional development activities on campus during the 1999 Spring Semester. In addition, I laid a foundation for two campus-wide activities planned for the 1999 Fall Semester.

The following are highlights of my work during the Spring 1999 Semester:

• Facilitated workshops on the topics of effective teaching and setting goals for teaching.
• Distributed information on conferences, calls for papers, and other professional development opportunities via the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning e-mail distribution list (flc@storm.bucks.edu).
• Conducted voluntary, confidential in-class observations.
• Attended a workshop sponsored by the National Society for experiential education that was held at Bronx Community College, where I met with colleagues and participated in an exercise that demonstrated the principles of experiential education.
• Consulted with and conducted research for a group of faculty that is studying the evaluation of teaching at the College.
• Selected books related to faculty development for the Library.
• Worked on arranging to bring a nationally known speaker, who is an expert in faculty development and in conflict management, to campus during the 1999 Fall Semester.
• Sponsored roundtable discussions on teaching and learning. The roundtables, "A Pair of Round-Table Discussions: Improving upon the Learning Environment at BCCC," were well attended by part- and full-time students, faculty, staff, and administrators. This program was the first time members of all groups at Bucks County Community have gathered at one time to share ideas and perspectives on how to improve upon the learning environment at the College. While having lunch, the participants shared and discussed ideas for possible directions and programs that would enhance the learning environment on the main campus and on all Bucks campuses.
• This event was unique in the history of the College because the program's agenda was not set by any the groups that were represented; rather, all participants played an equal part in setting the agenda. The program took its inspiration from the word "community" in the name of the College, and the roundtable format for the program was selected because a table without a "head" promotes open discussion and fosters the spirit of community. With the continued support of the College and the participants, this program may be offered again during the upcoming academic year. Look for announcements in this newsletter and in the "flc" e-mail discussion list.

Resource Faculty Projects 1998-99

In the fall semester Doug Rosentrater developed and led a series of creativity workshops based on Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Sessions met weekly in the Faculty Center, where participants focused on different, unusual, and challenging exercises and situations. Much of the work was intended as self-reflective in keeping creative energies and benefits flowing.

Personal history, the impact of change, metaphor and symbolism, word associations, alternative futures, value and belief systems, preferential memories, humor, perception, paradoxes, synchronicity, and popular culture references were all used as a basis for moving participants beyond day-to-day routine responses and into the realm of creativity.

Teaching with Technology: Color Copier

Also in the fall, Catherine Jansen offered workshops, training sessions, and consultations in the use of the color copier in the New Arts building.

Catherine's expertise in using this technology was evident as she demonstrated applications ranging from creating a simple copy in color to manipulating the images or layering them in artistic fashion.

In one workshop, Catherine converted computer-generated pie charts to color transparencies for display with an overhead projector. She also reproduced an image and enlarged it using the color copier so that a tiny image was accessible to a classroom of students.

Research Project on Learning Styles

In conjunction with the Strategic Initiative process, the Faculty Center has been supporting the work of Bill Ford, John Hartwick, Tom O'Keefe, and Wendy Ullman. They developed and carried out a research agenda over the past two academic years. In the first year, team members immersed themselves in the literature on learning or thinking styles. They selected Robert Sternberg's model as the basis for investigating thinking styles among students at Bucks County Community College.

Last year, after carrying out several small-scale pilot studies, the team administered Sternberg's Thinking Styles Inventory to approximately 500 students enrolled in accounting, compositions, and psychology courses at BCCC. Results of this study were reported in TLC at the end of 1997-98.This year the project focused on the following research questions:

• What are the thinking styles of BCCC instructors?
• How are an instructor's thinking styles reflected in his or her pedagogical techniques?
• Do instructor thinking styles vary according to discipline?
• Is there a relationship between thinking styles and course satisfaction?
• In a cohort of first-time, full-time students, do thinking styles predict success and retention?

Data are currently being analyzed. The team's report is forthcoming.

Resource Faculty Projects 1999-2000

The Advisory Board of the Faculty Center selected two Resource Faculty Proposals to support in the coming year. The Board's practice is to consider the proposals under blind review, with the identity of the proposer unknown unless the proposal is selected.

One of the selected projects will focus on Netmeeting. Mary Marco proposed this project to introduce faculty members to the capabilities and potential applications of this software package. Mary plans to offer hour-long Powerpoint presentations to give an overview of what Netmeeting can do. She will follow up with hands-on training sessions using guided exercises on the computer. According to Mary, Netmeeting is such a user-friendly application that most can learn how to make a call and use pertinent features with only two hours of training.

Faculty Center Web Page Development

The other project selected by the Advisory Board was submitted by Maureen McCreadie, who plans to develop and implement a web site for the Faculty Center. The site will be accessible through the College web site. The Faculty Center site will include a calendar of events, current and back issues of TLC, a link to make subscribing to FLC (the e-mail discussion list of the Faculty Center) easy, professional development announcements, links to related campus activities (for example, Teaching & Learning with Technologies Roundtable and the IT Facilitators page) and to sites elsewhere on the WWW (such as other faculty center sites and discipline-specific resource sites).

From Outgoing Facilitator, Maureen McCreadie

For the past five years I have been privileged to work with faculty members from across the campus in establishing the Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning. What was, not long ago, just an idea, is now a facility, a program series, and a vehicle for professional development, interaction, and exploration.

Many have contributed to the Faculty Center's success. Without the energy and contributions of the original planning committee, the advisory board, the resource faculty, the professional development consultants and advisory board chairpersons, the faculty center would still be on the drawing board.

Support for the Center has come from all walks of the campus. We have enjoyed consistent support from President Linksz, Dean Conn, and the Board of Trustees, especially Bill Calkins. Folks from across campus have donated items, added their decorative touches, presented their work and shared their ideas. Physical Plant, Purchasing, Bookkeeping, Telephone Services, Academic Computing, Duplicating, Media Services, Security & Safety, and Information Support Services, among others, have made the Center a comfortable, productive operation.

With complete confidence that the Center will flourish under the able leadership of Pat Laser, Doug Rosentrater, and Wendy Ullman, I pass along the care and nurturing of the Faculty Center which, I believe, represents the very best of what we can accomplish together. Thank you to all who have participated. Thank you for a marvelous collaboration. What a pleasure!