Excellence in Teaching Day, a highly anticipated annual gathering hosted by the Center for Teaching Excellence, moved into a virtual space this year. Nearly 200 faculty and staff enrolled to watch keynote speaker Rhonda Magee, a nationally recognized authority on mindfulness and racial justice, present “The Inner Work of Teaching and Learning for All” on May 15 via Zoom.
The University of San Francisco law professor’s talk focused on resilience, an appropriate theme given the shift by schools, colleges, and universities to remote learning in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Center for Teaching Excellence Interim Director Stacy Grooters said the decision was made to continue with the keynote talk by Magee, while eliminating the breakout sessions that are part of the traditional event.
“We hope this adds to a sense of normalcy by giving us a chance to be in community with our colleagues, who we may not have seen or spoken to for several weeks,” Grooters said.
“Our faculty are excellent teachers and though they are teaching in a different context now, the heart of their work remains the same: What are my students learning? How can I help them learn?”
Though selected months earlier, the topic of “re-envisioning resilience” could not be more on point at the close of a tumultuous semester that required students, faculty, and staff to make many adjustments. As one indication of how dramatically the University had to shift gears: prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the institution had approximately 250 licenses for the video conferencing application Zoom. Post-outbreak, it now has 22,500, said Grooters.
“[Magee’s] message is a needed one right now and so we decided it made sense to go ahead with her keynote,” said Grooters. “Our faculty are excellent teachers and though they are teaching in a different context now, the heart of their work remains the same. What are my students learning? How can I help them learn? Now they are challenged to think more creatively in this new mode.”
The original idea was to focus on ways that classroom teaching at the university level can help foster in students the qualities of tenacity or persistence, Grooters said, or respond to a broader set of challenges from economic, social, and political conditions. Now, after the sudden shift to remote learning and the near-total closing of the campus, resilience is something faculty and staff must summon routinely.
“Our hope is that [Magee] gave faculty some tools for their own self-care in this moment so they can support their own and their students’ resilience in this time,” Grooters said.
Ed Hayward | University Communications | May 2020