The CTLA sponsors Community Friday luncheon learning opportunities during the fall and spring semesters. These events are designed to give faculty and staff the chance to enjoy lunch with colleagues, learn from presenters, and engage in conversation and reflection. Topics for discussion will focus on pedagogy, teaching and learning, faculty development, and student success. Announcements are sent out on a weekly basis with a request for RSVPs and lunch options. Unless otherwise noted, Community Fridays take place from noon to 1 p.m. in Humanities and Social Studies Center, Room A1231, with lunch service beginning at 11:45 a.m.
Spring 2025 Community Friday Schedule
Over the past several decades, "affirmative action" has generated a lot of comments and litigation, particularly for institutions of higher education. Professor of History Emeritus Dan Kaiser joins us to take a look back at affirmative action and how, in 1918, 51²è¹İapp College anticipated the idea by identifying and recruiting to 51²è¹İapp African American men. Professor Kaiser will outline the College's plan, the support of a Chicago philanthropist, and the demise of the project whose ambitions later efforts attempted to revive.
Please join us for the next Community Friday on February 7th. This session showcases the robust network of advisers that students have access to at 51²è¹İapp. Panelist pairs Kate Ferraro, Academic Advising and Monty Roper, Anthropology; Mary Jane Shroyer, CLS and Jim Swartz, Chemistry; and Alicia Stanley, IGE and Kristen Burson, Physics, will demonstrate how advisers from different areas of the college have communicated and collaborated to meet student needs.
Through table dialogue, we seek to build capacity for effective communication across both faculty and staff advisers, so when you join us, please sit with people you know less well to get to know them and their work. This session is hosted by Joyce Stern, Dean for Student Success and Academic Advising, and is inspired by the work of the Quality Initiative on Advising, which has raised our awareness of the need to provide more professional development to advisers.
The CTLA thanks Academic Advising for their generous support of this event.
There will be no speakers or presenters at this Community Friday. Faculty and staff are welcome to come and enjoy lunch and conversation with one another.
For Community Friday on Feb. 21, we are pleased to welcome Monica Chavez-Silva, vice president of community engagement and strategic planning; Ross Haenfler, professor of sociology; Roger Henderson, field placement and licensing coordinator in education, and Mike Guenther, associate professor of history.
Chavez-Silva will discuss the role of volunteers in meeting the needs of our communities, share information about rural nonprofit leadership, and talk about specific ways that the Office of Community Partnerships, Planning, and Research can support employees interested in volunteering. She currently serves as a commissioner for , the state’s commission on volunteer service.
Haenfler will share his experience serving on the board of Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA). He will discuss how this service has influenced his teaching, helped him build relationships in the community, and has been a source of joy.
Henderson will talk about how serving on the board of directors of the 51²è¹İapp-Newburg School Foundation and the 51²è¹İapp School of Music has informed his work as a teacher and in his current position with the education department.
Guenther will talk about his experiences on the board of the new 51²è¹İapp Historical Museum.
We are delighted to be joined by Alexis Steele, the manager of student health and wellness. Mental Health First Aid is an 8-hour training. Join Steele to learn why this training is important for everyone, what the training covers, and valuable information about mental health. There will be handouts with resources and fun activities.
Please join us for the next Community Friday on March 7 in Rosenfield Center, Room 101. We will be joined by Andi Tracy, associate dean for student academic life; Cassie Wherry, bookstore manager; and Brad Lindberg, associate vice president of institutional initiatives and enrollment. They will introduce 51²è¹İapp’s new textbook program, GrinnBooks. GrinnBooks is a College-wide program providing enrolled students access to their required textbooks at the start of each term.
According to Tracy, Wherry, and Lindberg: “Beginning in the 2025–26 academic year, the cost of textbooks will be included in the student comprehensive fee. By including the cost of textbooks in tuition and purchasing in bulk, students will save money and be guaranteed access to their textbooks. Through GrinnBooks, students have access to their textbooks (whether physical or digital) on the first day of class, eliminating the need to search for or buy materials separately, ensuring they can start their coursework immediately. Students no longer have to worry about having the correct edition, codes for problem sets and online resources, or any of the hassle of buying books online. All course materials are delivered digitally through Canvas (the College’s new Learning Management System) or through a convenient pickup of physical materials at the Pioneer Bookshop. This campus-wide program seeks to ensure greater educational equity among students and to remove the cost of course materials as a barrier to taking a class.â€
The CTLA thanks the organizers for their generous support of this event. For information about future Community Fridays, please visit the CLTA website at Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.
Please join us for the next Community Friday on March 28. If you are considering requesting a writing mentor (peer writing consultant) for a Tutorial or other course next fall, or if you are curious about the work these students do, this is an excellent time to come find out more about the program.
In this session, current writing mentors and faculty who have worked with writing mentors will discuss what students get from working with writing mentors, what faculty get from partnering with writing mentors, what faculty can do to make these partnerships most effective, and what writing mentors themselves get from the program.
Faculty:
- Tamara Beauboeuf, GWSS
- Eiren Shea, Art History
- Jen Shook, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
Writing Mentors:
- Ashley Baek ’25, English & French
- Ellie Cierpiot ’25, English
- Ben Curran ’25, Sociology
- Agatha Fusco ’25, Economics & Spanish
- There will be time for questions from attendees. The panel is moderated by Tisha Turk, director of the Writing Mentors Program and the Writing, Reading, and Speaking Center.
The CTLA thanks the Writing, Reading, and Speaking Center for their generous support of this event.
Are you ready for Canvas? You are cordially invited to join us for the next Community Friday on April 4 in Rosenfield Center, Room 101 to learn more about our new learning management system from LMS Administrator Gina Donovan. Gina will walk you through the transition from Blackboard to Canvas, as we prepare for all courses to use this new LMS in fall 2025. You will see what a Canvas course will look like, learn about the features of the system, and start to think about how to use these features to support your teaching. There also will be details about the timeline for Canvas implementation, information about the training and support that will be available, and the opportunity to get answers to your questions.
Please join us at the next Community Friday on April 11 for an informative panel discussion about real examples of assessment work happening at 51²è¹İapp College. Faculty members Logan Lee, Josh Sandquist, and Sarah Purcell will share their experiences from the academic departments of economics, biology, and history. After the panelists present, attendees will have the chance to ask questions, explore how to apply these insights to their own assessment efforts, and learn effective ways to communicate their assessment work.
The CTLA thanks the Assessment Committee for their generous support of this event.
We are pleased to welcome Phil Jones, Associate Professor, Humanities Librarian and Coordinator of Research Services, and Libby Cave, Assistant Professor, Digital Humanities and Instruction Librarian. Join us to learn about and to help shape library programming that provides support and community for students and faculty conducting research during the summer. At this event, Phil and Libby will share their planned topics and schedule for summer 2025. They also welcome your suggestions and insights so that their summer programming best supports all scholars on campus this summer.
The CTLA thanks 51²è¹İapp College Libraries for their generous support of this event.
Please join Vice President JC Lopez and Interim Dean Jerry Seaman for a generative conversation around the partnership between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs at 51²è¹İapp College. We will begin with a brief overview of points of connection and collaboration, mutual support, and shared concern. From there, we will engage in table conversations around broad themes to discern and share perspectives on what is going well, what we might be missing, and what we might next do together. This Community Friday is a special opportunity to bring the leaders of these two divisions together and rethink our shared mission.
The CTLA thanks the Dean’s Office for their generous support of this event.
Susan Ferguson invites faculty and staff to a presentation of her research on Laetitia Moon Conard, a founding member of the sociology department at 51²è¹İapp College. She began this research project over 20 years ago, and with the help of student research assistants, she was able to return to this project in June 2024. She and her research students discovered that Conard was a storied activist, fighting for women‘s suffrage, pacifism, and social welfare. She was a scholar who received extensive graduate training in comparative religions, sociology, and economics, and she was a teacher who practiced “community-engaged learning†by sending her students out into the community. In addition to helping low-income families in town and co-founding the League of Women Voters, Conard also ran for Governor of Iowa in 1932 on the Socialist Party platform. And that is just the tip of the iceberg!
Please join Susan and her students, Ileah Bonzi ’25, Ben Curran ’25, Emma Kumano-Maloney ’25, and Olivia Pluska ’25, as they give voice to “a woman ahead of her time†who contributed greatly to the intellectual life and activities on campus and in our community.
As part of the College’s commitment to academic excellence and financial sustainability, there is renewed interest around building the role philanthropy can play in shaping the future of 51²è¹İapp. You are invited to join President Anne Harris and the Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations Bernadine Douglas for a conversation around building a culture that inspires and nurtures giving to support mission of the College.