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Identifying where faculty “fit” within SEM planning and implementation was the topic of an ��ɫֱ�� 2014 SEM Conference session titled “Engaging Faculty: An Essential Part of SEM.”

Faculty members from two Canadian institutions—Linda Pardy of the University of the Fraser Valley and Tamara Leary of Memorial University—spoke about the connections between student retention and engagement and faculty’s delivery of academic curriculum.

“Recruitment strategies, dynamic student life programs and superior student services are not enough,” Pardy said. “We need to encourage the faculty to develop.”

The presenters shared nine ideas (based on efforts they’ve tried) for involving faculty in planning and implementation:

1. Rethink your recruitment strategy by asking the right questions to students and faculty. “When you are having difficulty conversations, you are probably starting to affect some change” Leary said.  “Data is involved here. For some faculty, teaching is not why they went into the profession; they are interested in research.”
2. Intentionally seek out and partner with faculty across disciplines to create strategies/initiatives geared toward development of the whole student and learning society. “Doers help the designers and the designers help the doers,” Pardy said.
3. Integrate adult learning and student development theory.
4. Make academic and non-academic connections. “If we are going to get in the room together we have to know where you’re coming from and be open to know where others are coming from as well,” Leary said.
5. Acknowledge the role staff and faculty play in student success. You have to have that awareness for when something is not right, Pardy said. “Faculty are sometimes the only ones who see the students,” she said. “Faculty have a radar. If they are taught and trained to pay attention to that radar, they know how to get help.”
6. Use online learning strategies to build community.
7. Provide instructional skills workshops to give faculty “new” teaching tools and professional development.
8. Use the co-curricular record (CCR) to increase faculty awareness around importance of student skill development outside formal classroom.
9. Embrace institutional learning outcomes.

“It’s a process,” Leary said of engaging faculty in an environment filled with change. “It’s like trying to fix a moving train.”

In closing, small groups exchanged ideas for what they plan to do in their individual institutional roles to help foster engaging relationships with faculty in EM planning, recruitment and initiatives.