is a national association of college and university faculty with professional responsibilities for or interests in directing writing programs. Members include directors of first-year writing courses, undergraduate writing concentrations and majors, writing across the university programs, writing centers and other administrators and faculty committed to writing instruction.

was held July 14-17 in Raleigh, with a workshop held July 10-13 and one-day institutes conducted on July 14.

Jessie L. Moore, associate professor of professional writing and rhetoric in English at ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ and associate director of the Center for Engaged Learning, served as the 2016 Local Host. Paula Rosinski with ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s Center for Writing Excellence & English and Associate Provost Tim Peeples volunteered as members of the Local Host Committee.

In addition, several ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ faculty presented at the conference. Jennifer Eidum Zinchuk (English) presented in a session on summer preparatory programs. Zinchuk, Paula Patch (English), Janet Warman (English), Jeffrey Coker (Biology and Core Curriculum), and Greg Shemkovitz (English) presented on a recent residential campus initiative. Heather Lindenman (English) presented in a session on revision and reflection. Moore also collaborated on a workshop on affirming LGBTQIA campus members.

The conference drew 410 writing program administrators, faculty and students.

Please join colleagues from Belk Library, Teaching & Learning Technologies, and CATL to learn how the high cost of textbooks is impacting student choices about textbook purchasing, and to consider alternatives to textbooks at no cost or low cost to your students. We’ll include time during the session for you to explore possible sources of high-quality alternative course materials, so bring your specific ideas and questions.

To sign up for this workshop, please use the .

“Distractedness and fragmentation characterize contemporary academic life,” observe Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber, two teaching-award-winning professors of English at Canadian universities. They see this as an unfortunate trend, since academia is an area that should be cultivating deep thought. In chapters like “Pedagogy and Pleasure” and “Collegiality and Community,” they propose that faculty slow down, act with purpose, and cultivate emotional and intellectual resilience to the effects of corporatization of higher education. Berg and Seeber argue that time for reflection is not a luxury for already privileged professors (as some see it), but crucial for faculty in order to effectively teach and undertake good scholarship, which in turn benefits students, the university community, and liberal education, as well as the faculty themselves. Please by June 23rd to receive a copy of the book.

In this book group we will read Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide by Richard Felder & Rebecca Brent. Whether you are an experienced teacher or just starting out, there is something for you in this book. The strategies described by the authors are research-based and can be easily implemented in an existing course or incorporated into a new course you are designing for next year. Already have your own research-based strategies? Come share them in the discussion! Please by June 14th to receive a copy of the book.

Written by a multidisciplinary group of faculty, Critical Reading in Higher Education is intended “for undergraduate instructors from various disciplines who are frustrated that their students don’t read, or more accurately, don’t read the way they are expected to in undergraduate courses” (xi). This book explains the findings from a collaborative research project focused on “how students read in first-year courses.” And what they offer, as Pat Hutchings describes in the forward is “good news, not-so-good news, and bad news,” about student reading habits. Though the study focuses on first-year courses, it offers findings and strategies that can be adapted or applied in other course contexts to foster and help develop students’ critical reading skills (as well as a nice model for a well-designed cross-disciplinary collaborative scholarship of teaching and learning project).

The first half of the book will be discussed on June 15th. Participants will select a second date for discussing the remainder of the book. Please by June 1st to receive a copy of the book.

Randy Williams, presidential fellow and dean of multicultural affairs, and Stephanie Baker White, assistant professor of public health studies, will develop a cross-disciplinary racial equity course to provide students with a critical framework for analyzing systems of racial inequity and creating strategies to effectively support diversity and inclusion on and off campus.

The Diversity Infusion Project was established in 2011. Consistent with ÂÒÂ×ÊÓƵ’s unprecedented , the Diversity Infusion Project’s purpose is to develop and implement strategies to infuse the curriculum and pedagogies of the university with the best practices related to human diversity, broadly defined. For more information and to see examples of past Diversity Infusion Projects, .

A lifelong commitment to the professoriate requires staying engaged and motivated for the long haul. You may be hitting your stride at mid-career but are you enjoying the fruits of your earlier labor? In this practical, interactive workshop based on the Peak Performing Professor Model, mid to late career faculty will learn evidence-based practices to motivate and pace themselves for continued success and enjoyment in career and life.

The following practical skills will be presented and practiced. You will learn how to:

• Prevent post-tenure burnout, blowout, and rustout by defining success to include Great Work, work that flows easily from a deep sense of meaning and purpose, and a Great Life, one that brings you energy, longevity, and joy.
• Design a life management system that aligns your strengths, time, and energy with your personal priorities and your diverse faculty responsibilities.
• Apply discernment skills so that you can say a few strong “yes’s” and many graceful “no’s” to the abundance of service/leadership opportunities offered to the mid-life and beyond professor.
• Take charge of those overwhelming to-do lists by envisioning and managing projects, goals, and daily to-do lists that are realistic and achievable.
• Focus on the most important tasks instead of wandering from task to task.
• Get and stay organized.
• Create to-do lists are realistic and achievable.
• Manage tasks so you will get them done on time every time.
• (Optional) Enjoy your scholarship more by creating a “body of work” instead of a series of publications.
• (Optional) Minimize time management distracters such as email, grading, and interruptions.
• (Optional) Develop a personal well-being plan that supports a satisfying personal life and a productive work life.

To sign up, please use the .

A faculty job can be a very satisfying life-long career IF it is handled well. Long-term work-life balance requires a combination of two things: a vision of what is needed for professional and personal success and the work habits used by successful academics to achieve long-term work and life satisfaction. This practical interactive workshop, based on the evidence-based Peak Performing Professor model, will explore the challenge of the tripartite professor job description (teaching, research, and service) and how to balance those responsibilities with a great personal life. Hint: Doing everything well all of the time is not the answer.

You will learn how to PACE yourself with these practices:

• POWER and motivate yourself with a vision of meaning and purpose in your career and life.
• ALIGN time and tasks with your Power to produce high impact results with high job satisfaction.
• CONNECT with those at home and at work for mutual support.
• ENERGIZE yourself through wellness and well-being practices for better work-life balance, a long productive career, and a long healthy and satisfying life.

The benefits of applying the PACE practices will allow you to:

• Create a life management system that aligns your strengths, time, and energy with your personal priorities and your diverse faculty responsibilities.
• Discern what activities and opportunities will move your vision forward so that you can say strong “yes’s” and graceful “no’s” to the competing priorities of the college professor.
• Take charge of those overwhelming to-do lists by envisioning and managing projects, goals, and daily to-do lists that are realistic and achievable.
• (Optional) Build social capital, relationships with colleagues that pay off in mutual productivity and satisfaction.
• (Optional) Minimize time management distracters such as email, grading, and interruptions.
• (Optional) Create and maintain energy so that you can work productively without burnout.

To sign up, please use the .

Join us at The Oak House with guest facilitators Paul Miller and Meredith Allison to discuss the relationship between undergraduate research mentoring and teaching — including the approaches we use to teach students in a research context and how mentoring undergraduates in research affects our in-class teaching and our research.

To sign up, please use the .

Goldsmith will give a brief demonstration of a project developed as part of her Humanities Writ Large Fellowship at Duke, an interactive map of Edith Wharton’s New York. Focusing on process rather than product, she’ll discuss how her understanding of and argument about the text changed through creating the map. Together, you’ll consider the “so what” of using GIS in the humanities classroom: Why might GIS and other spatial tools be useful in humanities courses? Why think about humanities texts as data sources? How might such an approach affect students’ and faculty’s perceptions of the humanities? Please bring a laptop (not a tablet or phone) so you can develop your own map.

To sign up, please use the .