Welcome back! CIE is ready with a full schedule of face-to-face professional development events for Fall and Spring semesters. 

First up is our August PD following the Opening Conference on Aug. 23. We have planned two workshops and lunch. Bring a device for participation and workshopping. 

• 11 a.m. — Lessons From the Pandemic: How Student Services and Faculty Are Changing for the Better
• 12:15 p.m. — Lunch
• 1:05 p.m. — Ed Tech Announcements
• 1:15 p.m. — Integrating Experiential Learning: Building Your Assignments for Full Cycle Learning
• 3 p.m. — Adjourn 

Here are links to articles from the Student Experience Project and Inside Higher Ed to get you primed for the sessions. 

Our Coffee Club is back on the third Friday of the month. We’ll send an invite soon for the first Coffee Club on Sept. 16 meeting. 

Friday Forums will resume on Sept. 30. We plan to meet face-to-face, but will switch to zoom for December and February meetings to save us all some wintertime driving. 

Plans for our Fall Conference on Oct. 11 are well underway. We are returning to the traditional format with four tracks of sessions for faculty and staff. Our plenary speaker is Todd Zakrajsek, who you may know from the Lilly Conference and/or his book The New Science of Learning. He will also lead several workshop sessions. 

Invitations and more information on all these events are coming soon. We look forward to seeing you in person.

Academic conferences are also back for the academic year, and many of you have already put in your requests for conference funding. CIE has our full PD budget this year, but it’s still a good idea to submit your conference proposals now. Funds for conferences are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Here’s the form and process for submitting a proposal for CIE funding for a conference. 

If you are looking for a conference closer to home, consider The Lilly Conference Traverse City, one of five Lilly conferences held around the country focusing on evidence-based teaching and learning in higher education. The conference is Oct. 13-15 at the Park Place Hotel and Conference Center. Please email Janet Lively if you are interested in attending and we will get you signed up. The Lilly Conference gives us a group discount.

Another popular PD opportunity is the Liberal Arts Network for Development Conference, scheduled this year for Feb. 15-17, 2023, in Dearborn. The LAND Conference features presenters from Michigan community colleges. 

Faculty are also invited to consider applying for a sabbatical. Criteria for sabbaticals and the application information is linked here. We recommend starting the application process in September.