Month: January 2026

Welcome back! We hope you had a great winter break and are ready for Spring 2026. It is a short programming month, but there is still a lot going on–get all the details below.

Spring 2026 Faculty Pedagogy Colloquium

Mark your calendar for upcoming presentations:

• Tuesday, February 10th at 3:30 PM with Sean McDonald (Education)
• Thursday, February 19th at 12:30 PM with Debra Hydorn (Mathematics)
• Thursday, March 12th at 12:00 PM with Kaitlyn Haynal (Communication & Digital Studies)
• Tuesday, April 7th at 12:30 PM with Melissa Wells (Education)
• Wednesday, April 15th at 3:00 PM with Samira Fallah (Management & Marketing)

No Time to Read Book Club: Rescheduled Session with David Rettinger

Please join the Center for Teaching and the No Time to Read Book Club as we conclude our reading of The Opposite of Cheating with a Q&A session with David Rettinger on Thursday, January 22nd at 3:30 PM over Zoom. All are welcome!

Spring 2026 No Time to Read: More Than Words by John Warner

Spring No Timers–watch your inbox on Monday for a schedule of spring meetings and chapter ‘assignments’. This semester, we will offer an in-person and online meeting monthly. Join the meeting that best fits your schedule! We will start in February to give folks a bit more time to read and settle into the semester.

If you missed securing a book copy from CfT but bought or borrowed one on your own, please join us for the discussions! Meeting dates will be posted on the Event Calendar.

Public Lecture & Workshop with Alexa Alice Joubin

This hands-on workshop addresses two of the challenges in our era: (1) data poverty despite informational abundance due to AI’s inequitable filtration, and (2) disempowerment through exclusion, which is caused by technological opacity. The solution to information inequity is open culture, which transforms us from mere consumers of AI to informed participants in the digital world. The antidote to opacity and exclusion is participatory justice through meta-cognition (the ability to reflect on one’s own thought processes). We do not participate fully as stakeholders when we take a passive role.

Alexa Alice Joubin is Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The inaugural recipient of the bell hooks Legacy Award, she held the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Warwick in the UK and has been appointed John M. Kirk, Jr. Chair in Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. 

This lecture is organized by Maya Mathur (English & Linguistics) and is sponsored by the Center for Teaching, the Department of English and Linguistics, and the Center for AI in the Liberal Arts.

New Faculty Monthly Meetups

First year faculty are reminded to block off the following dates in their spring calendars for monthly meetup (all meetings start at 4:00 PM in Seacobeck 128):

• January 21st
• February 11th
• March 11th
• April 8th

NEST is a semester-based faculty cohort that meets monthly to brainstorm and share classroom strategies. The heart of the NEST program are classroom observations by your fellow cohort members to see how similar strategies work in different classroom and disciplinary contexts. Join Elizabeth Johnson-Young to learn more and get started for the spring semester!

Book Authors Group

Make a commitment to your writing agenda and join the Book Authors Group every Friday from 3:30 – 5:00 PM over Zoom for focused writing time, support, and accountability. Any and all writing projects are welcome and you can come and go as your schedule permits. Books, manuscripts, articles, grants, dissertations, tenure files–all kinds of writing projects are successfully completed with the Book Authors Group! Contact Zach Whalen or Brenta Blevins for more information and the Zoom link.

This interactive workshop, led by the Center for Career and Professional Development, introduces faculty to a suite of high-impact career tools that can be integrated into After Mary Washington courses or classes where the professional development Life After Mary Washington competency is a focus. Faculty will explore practical applications of tools such as Handshake (internship, job, and event searching), Big Interview (interview preparation and practice with recorded feedback), Forage (short, real-world job simulations designed by employers), Parker Dewey (paid, short-term micro-internships with organizations), and Focus2 (career self-assessment of interests, values, skills, and goals). The CCPD will also review how students can receive professional document support (résumé, cover letter, LinkedIn, and professional communication coaching). 

The workshop is intentionally scheduled during the second week of the semester, giving faculty ample time to thoughtfully integrate these tools into assignments, reflections, and experiential learning activities later in the term. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of each tool’s purpose along with time to brainstorm how the resources can be used in their own classes. Faculty are encouraged to follow up after the workshop by scheduling consultations with the Life After Mary Washington QEP Co-Director, Alex Dunn (adunn4@umw.edu), and/or with the Career Center to further develop and implement their ideas.

January Updates from the Research and Creativity Collaborative

Welcome back to the new semester and new opportunities for student research and creativity. Here are some opportunities and important deadlines for you and your students 

• January 16: Last day to add a URES 197 (URES 197 FAQs)

• January 21: Undergraduate Research Grant Application deadline for spring funding. 

• January 23: UMW Summer Research Institutes faculty proposal deadline. Both summer institutes will begin on May 18, 2026. The Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Institute will conclude with a symposium on June 17. The Summer Science Institute concludes with its symposium on July 22. Faculty interested in participating in AHSSSI should submit a proposal directly to Betsy Lewis. Faculty interested in SSI should talk to their department chair. See the links below for this year’s descriptions and CFP for each program, as well as our website for more information. 

• AHSSSI 2026 Description and Call for Proposals

• 2026 Irene Piscopo Rodgers Summer Science Institute

Lastly, see your students featured on the Beyond the Classroom blog. Submit a brief blurb and some photos of them in action today!!  

And as always, browse our website for more news, resources for faculty and students, as well as important announcements, dates and deadlines and contact Betsy Lewis elewis@umw.edu to answer your questions and share your ideas! 

Wondering where to begin with digital accessibility?

Digital Learning Support has put together a short post that offers a place to start. It highlights a few simple first steps and points you toward helpful resources and support as you begin exploring accessibility in your courses.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming the landscape of higher education, challenging traditional pedagogies while offering potential opportunities for innovation. This conference invites scholars, educators, instructional designers, librarians, technologists, and administrators from colleges and universities to explore the intersections of AI, teaching, and the liberal arts. 

We welcome proposals that critically and creatively engage with questions such as: 

• What are the practical uses of AI in a liberal arts classroom? 
• How is AI reshaping teaching and learning in specific liberal arts disciplines? 
• How can AI foster new understandings of interdisciplinarity?  
• What ethical and/or cultural frameworks should guide the integration of AI in the college classroom? 
• How can liberal arts educators prepare students to think critically about AI and its impact on society? 
• How can liberal arts educators prepare students to use AI tools after graduation as part of their careers and/or graduate school?  
• How does AI impact accessibility in the classroom?  

Audience: This conference is designed for scholars, educators, instructional designers, librarians, technologists, and administrators working in liberal arts contexts who are looking to participate in constructive and ethical discussions about AI use at our respective institutions.  

Please complete this short form to submit a presentation proposal.  We encourage you to share the call with colleagues at liberal arts institutions who want to contribute to nuanced and critical conversations about AI in college classrooms.

Questions? Contact the conference organizers, Victoria Russell (vrussel3@umw.edu) and Krystyn Moon (kmoon@umw.edu).

Reminders and Looking Ahead…

• Victoria and Elizabeth are available for consultations to brainstorm and strategize creative classroom solutions. Reach out directly or you can use the CfT online consultation scheduler. Consultations are available in-person or virtually during work hours, Monday-Friday.
• CfT is finalizing a spring workshop series on playful pedagogy based on no- to low-tech strategies you can use the next day to address classroom challenges and promote engagement. It’s a back-to-basics series with a few twists. Let us know if you have a specific classroom challenge or question that would benefit from a playful approach.