Opening Week Events

10 a.m. - noon

Teaching Difficult Things: Strategies for Our Courses and Our Campus

What are difficult things? Topics that inspire resistance or emotion, topics that are not well understood by the general public or that may inspire misinformation, topics that are politicized in ways that make it difficult to cover them without appearing partisan, etc. This list is not meant to be exhaustive but rather suggestive. Together we'll learn more about resistance and how to deal with it as well as strategies for teaching more effectively that we may then be able to share with others. Led by CETL Director Cyndi Kernahan. 

Join the Community of Practice (COP)! Those who want to continue the conversation over the course of the spring and early summer can sign up to be part of an ongoing group. This group will meet several more times (March 11, May 20, June 10 and a trip to Faculty College from May 31-June 4 as part of the campus team). Those who decide to continue will receive a stipend of $500 in July 2022 and have all travel and expenses covered to attend Faculty College at the Osthoff resort near Lake Michigan). 

Zoom link sent to those who RSVPed 

9-11:30 a.m.        

General Education Session 

The General Education and University Requirements Committee is hosting two open forums on the proposed revision to the General Education program of our campus. Everyone is welcome to participate. This is the first set of campus wide discussions, so if you are unable to attend these, there will be additional opportunities for your participation. 

The focus of this session will be on the traditional foundation categories of Oral Communication, Quantitative Literacy, Written Communication, and Health and Wellness. 

Please let us know that you are attending as additional materials will be provided in advance of these workshops; however, pre-registration is not required. You can contact either kelly.duffbowers@uwrf.edu or rich.wallace@uwrf.edu.

Location: Teams

9-11:30 a.m.        

General Education Session

The General Education and University Requirements Committee is hosting two open forums on the proposed revision to the General Education program of our campus. Everyone is welcome to participate. This is the first set of campus-wide discussions, so if you are unable to attend these, there will be additional opportunities for your participation.

The focus of this session will be on the development and implementation of a first-year course that all incoming students across campus would take. 

Please let us know that you are attending as additional materials will be provided in advance of these workshops; however, pre-registration is not required. You can contact either kelly.duffbowers@uwrf or rich.wallace@uwrf.edu.

Location: Teams

The Great Northern Festival – Learning from Place: Bdote – Sunday, Jan. 30, 1-3 p.m. Bdote is a Dakota word that generally means “where two waters come together.” Offered through the Minnesota Humanities Center, this immersive, outdoor experience invites participants to reconsider their relationship to land, water, sky and all life through stories and perspectives shared by Dakota community members. Program is lead by Ramona Kitto Stately, Chairperson of the MN Indian Education Assoc., and Ethan Neerdaels, Executive director of Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye, a 501c3 dedicated to reversing the trend of language loss and raising future generations of Dakota speakers. For more information and to register, email Grace L. Coggio no later than January 14. Space is limited.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Holiday

10-11 a.m.
 

It’s Not Just You: Burnout Resilience in Challenging Times with Rebecca Pope-Ruark 

Burnout in higher education was a problem before COVID-19 entered the scene and has only increased given the stresses of 2020 and 2021. In this workshop, we will explore what burnout is and, more importantly, ways to develop strategies that foster resilience and meaningful self-care even amid challenging times.

Location:  Zoom

11:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m.
 

Burnout in Higher Education Listening Session
After watching Rebecca's talk, come and debrief with others and share your own experiences with burnout. 

Location: Teams

1 p.m. Reception

1:30-2:30 p.m. Meeting
 

Spring 2022 Opening Meeting

Location: Riverview Ballroom, University Center
Meeting livestream

All day
 

Activity Insight Day

10-11:30 a.m.

Being Productive in Your Scholarly Work at a Teaching-Focused Institution 

This session will focus on sharing ideas for how to get writing and other scholarly work done at a teaching-focused, student-centered institution. The discussion will feature a panel of successful UWRF scholars describing how they get their work done and sharing tips for a successful career overall. Led by CETL Director Cyndi Kernahan.  

Location:  Teams

1-2 p.m.

Making Meetings Effective

We often must spend more time in meetings than we would like. Whether you attend or run meetings, we will review how you can make them efficient, effective and productive. Webinar led by Janet M. Taylor.

Location: WebEx

2-2:30 p.m.

On the heels of Janet Taylor’s Making Meeting’s Effective virtual session, join us for a short presentation on using MS Teams at UWRF led by Steven Meads and facilitated by Jody Sather. We will focus on our specific toolset Microsoft Teams as it relates to our virtual environment. We will go through some common scenarios and potential meeting “gotchas.” The meeting is only a half-hour, but we will have a few minutes for questions and depending on time will have a mechanism for follow-up if we are unable to answer at the time. Please contact jody.sather@uwrf.edu with any questions.

Location: Teams

10- 11:30 a.m.

How Much Should Instructors Accommodate Student Mental Health and Other Issues?: Working Together to Find Balance and Sustainability 

Are you concerned about student mental health or other issues? Have you struggled to find the right balance between accommodation and requirements without burning yourself out? In this session we will learn more about how to avoid going it alone by collaborating with the BIT Team and others in Student Success. Mark Huttemier (Student Health and Counseling), Jackie Lee (Student Conduct), Alicia Reinke-Tuthill (Ability Services) and Ian Stroud (Student Success) will provide some concrete suggestions for how to balance accommodations with requirements in a more sustainable way using university resources. 

Location: Teams 

3:30 - 4:30 p.m.

Inclusive Teaching Reading and Discussion Group (meeting #1: Communities of Belonging & Inclusive Classroom Climates)

A series of conversations, led by CETL Antiracism Fellow Scott Mitchell, grounded in inclusive teaching and instructional strategies centered on the classroom climates we establish as instructors. The goal for this series is to bring together a community of instructors across campus from a range of disciplines who are committed to inclusivity pedagogy as we discuss related projects and readings. These inclusive approaches can be adopted in any discipline or class, regardless of modality, and this series welcomes instructors to join the conversation on how we can transform our classrooms with inclusivity at their core. Each meeting in this series offers two recommended readings on an inclusive topic that will help frame our discussion. Additional meetings: February 24, 3:30-4:30; April 28, 3:30-4:30; May 19, 3:30-4:30.

Location:  Teams  

Sign up to receive the readings/meeting links

10 a.m.- noon

Sustainability Town Hall

UW-River Falls is making progress in sustainability, but there's much more to do! Where would you like to see more progress? Currently, we are a STARS Silver rated institution, an affiliate of Bee Campus USA, and are on the 2021 Sierra Club’s List of Cool Schools and the 2022 Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges, but we still have a plethora of opportunities for furthering our commitment to sustainability. This event takes stock of where we are and where we'd like to go in establishing a true culture of sustainability on campus. Join us for an overview of sustainability on campus followed by round table discussions on sustainability topics that most interest you. The ideas generated during this event will help to prioritize future sustainability initiatives at UWRF. 

Location: 23 Hagestad Hall

Winners Take All Book Giveaway

In anticipation of the visit of the writer and political commentator, Anand Giridharadas, as part of the Wyman Visiting Professor Series on March 8, we are giving away copies of Anand’s book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. The book is described as “An insider’s groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite’s efforts to ‘change the world’ preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve”.  There will be a couple of optional discussions in February (dates/times TBD) led by Political Science Professor Dr. Neil Kraus.  

 Sign up by January 21 to receive a free copy

"Such a Fun Age" Reading Group

The Diversity and Inclusivity Committee along with Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies program invite you to participate in a campus book read of "Such a Fun Age," a "page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both" (Goodreads).

 Sign up by January 28 to receive a free hardcover copy