Creating Community for Faculty & Students
Concurrent Session 6
Brief Abstract
Creating strong, supportive communities for faculty and students is now more important than ever. As faculty and students adapt to the changing landscape of higher education, creating communities where faculty and students can have safe and brave spaces can aid in challenging times. This session will highlight the benefits of building a community for educators and how professional development can enable faculty to replicate a community for students.
Presenters
Extended Abstract
The benefits of creating a community are significant, whether in-person, online, or hybrid. Students and faculty benefit from a sense of belonging, diversity, accountability, learning, and a support system that matters by being involved in a community.
Faculty can benefit from communities by having a safe space to explore new teaching strategies, discuss challenges, and have a support system of other educators to help them through their journey. Students can benefit from communities by having spaces to ask questions, learn from other students, and encounter diverse opinions and cultures. Creating communities can be challenging and hard to sustain. This session will examine how faculty can benefit from professional development experiences grounded in community and reflective practice. This discussion will also highlight how faculty engaged in professional development experiences are enabled through evidence-based teaching strategies to create inclusive and equitable communities for students.
Participants will learn about the benefits of building communities in higher education and how faculty can be the drivers of community in and out of the classroom. Participants will also hear from faculty on how participating in these experiences enabled them to better support communities for students, increase faculty and student relationships and mental health, and improve institutional outcomes.