The Center is pleased to be associated with the Teaching Faculty Council and the Future Faculty Program. The Teaching Faculty Council hosts monthly “Spotlight on Teaching” seminars, a discussion and dialog-based series that is meant to take educational topics and brainstorm ways to apply them to engineering classrooms. The Future Faculty Program prepares Ph.D. and Postdoctoral students for academia through job search skill building workshops and custom mentoring programs.

“Spotlight on Teaching” series goals: 

  • Improve the College of Engineering institutional culture about education
  • Improve faculty course evaluations
  • Let attendees prove interest in improving academic skills for PRT packages

Teaching Faculty Council sessions

In each session, a leader will introduce a teaching topic and provide examples of how he or she has used it in class. Attendees are then encouraged to participate in an open discussion where they explore the topic.

November: Lesson objectives

Writing lesson objectives for each lecture take time. Faculty members often wonder if they are a waste of time. Listen to a teaching colleague talk about why lesson objectives turned out to be one of the biggest time-savers, while simultaneously improving student performance.

December: Academic integrity

Are academic integrity events becoming more common in engineering courses? How does technology affect the opportunities to cheat and the opportunities to catch the cheaters? Did you know it is relatively easy to handle the fallout from most cheating infractions? What do you do to minimize the motivation and opportunities for students to cheat? Let’s discuss!

Future Faculty Program Resources

The Center for Faculty Success is running a series of workshops for preparing College of Engineering Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers for the academic job market. Topics include deciding between industry, academia and research labs, and developing an individual development plan, putting together an academic job application package, preparing for the campus interview, and deciding between offers or negotiating.

External resources

For more information, contact Teaching Faculty Council Chair, Bill Nace at wnace@cmu.edu.