27 May 2010
TO: Marcia Corcoran
Dean, Language Arts
FROM: Patti Keeling
Communication Studies
New Faculty Learning Community Coordinator
RE: New Faculty Learning Community
It was a pleasure working with the new faculty this past semester – I am happy to say that Chabot’s
students are in very good hands and are learning from innovative and knowledgeable teachers. I look
forward to being with next year’s new group for their entire first year of teaching and I’ve already begun
making plans for our meetings. To wrap up this year, however, I thought I’d give you a brief overview of
what I did in my short time with the new faculty.
I coordinated several guest presenters for our meetings this past semester. Carolyn Arnold did an
excellent presentation on student characteristics and grants. Most of the new faculty was only vaguely
aware of what Institutional Research does and how valuable their services can be. Carolyn provided us
with the Institutional Research Agenda, as well as Accreditation Survey Results. I think it helped the new
faculty understand the demographics of Chabot’s students and also linked them up with a valuable
resource.
For our meeting with Monica Munger, Learning Skills, I provided several handouts and pamphlets in
advance so the new faculty would have a better idea of how the program functions. It seemed like a
good follow up to our discussion on student characteristics in that some of our students may fall within
the category that would benefit from the Learning Skills program. Being able to identify the student
who might be learning disabled will enable our faculty to refer them to this program and will increase
that student’s chance for success.
Tom DeWit was our next presenter and the theme of the meeting was retention. Tom brought
information on the Faculty Inquiry Network, including an article on basic skills. We discussed issues of
class size, retaining at risk students and how to engage student voices as we inquire as to how we can
help students succeed. We also talked about assessment as a way to integrate students as “coinquirers.”
For our final meeting, Gary Carter did an outstanding presentation on enrollment management. He
walked us through all the jargon and definitions and, I think, most of them now know the meaning of
productivity. I thought this would be very helpful to them as most will be engaged in program review
and unit plans in the near future. We wrapped up this session with a GIFTS (Great Ideas for Teaching
Stuff) panel. I surveyed students in my classes and asked them to nominate a teacher who they think
was especially innovative in the classroom. I got quite a list and, happily, that list actually included one
of our new faculty. I then invited the nominated teachers to do a 5-7 minute presentation of their best
teaching activity/moment/conversation for our group. We had representatives from Communication
Studies, Math, English and Astronomy. Several of the new faculty presented effective teaching ideas, as
well. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to hear all the presenters. This was a huge success and will
definitely be on next year’s agenda. Actually, I think this would be a great idea to do for a flex day
activity. We have so many brilliant instructors; it was inspirational to learn about what they do in their
classrooms.
As a final bit of business, I distributed an evaluation form in which I asked the new faculty to comment
on both the first semester with Cindy Hicks and their time with me. I’m forwarding the two I’ve
received so far and will send the rest on when I receive them. Their comments will be very helpful to
me as I plan next year’s activities.
Thanks for the opportunity to work with this group. I’m really looking forward to next year.
Oh yes, I also provided great snacks!
CC: Dr. George Railey
Patricia Shannon