2024 SIGCSE Pre-Symposium: Professional Development for Teaching-Track Faculty

Professional Development for Teaching-Track Faculty

2024 SIGCSE TS Pre-Symposium Event

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Expected time: 8:30AM – 3:30PM

Location: Portland, Oregon

Organized by Computing Research Association, Education Committee, with support from NSF

Click here for the 2023 event.

Application Deadline February 16

Priority Deadline: January 1

Application Form

Overview

Enrollment in CS courses and programs continues to be high. To meet this increased demand, many Ph.D. granting departments have added or are actively recruiting teaching faculty (typically with academic rank) to their faculty. This whole-day event will focus on the professional development of teaching-track faculty (professor of practice, instructor, clinical faculty, lecturer, etc.) in Ph.D. granting departments, and will also be open to graduate students who are actively seeking, or are about to start seeking, a teaching faculty position.

The event fills a crucial need as many departments have limited experience on how to mentor, evaluate, and promote this new type of faculty. The sessions will focus on how teaching faculty can strategize their involvement in departmental as well as research activities, different forms of scholarship and leadership activities to pursue, and best practices for success, promotion, and advancement. Junior and mid-career teaching-track faculty will participate in an “unconference” format. By gathering topics of common interest, attendees will self organize to provide peer mentoring and to collect advice for professional development rather than having pre-planned panels or sessions at the discretion of the organizers.

The number of attendants is limited, and an application is required. There is no registration fee.

January 1. Priority application deadline. Late applications may still be accepted; see below.
January 12. Decision notification for priority applicants.
February 16. Last date that applications will be accepted if the event is not yet full.

Agenda

8:30am (15 min): Introduction to organization and format. Frame the goal is developing 1) networks of people with shared experiences, 2) a resource you can share with others at your institution
8:45am (40 min): Four 10 minute rounds of small group (2-3 people) introductions (name, affiliation, title, roles, responsibilities), brainstorming the topics of most interest for later discussion. Submit breakout topics in real time; organizers will organize such that there are enough breakouts for each to have no more than 4-5 people.
9:25am (5 min): Break (Organizers create breakout topics)
9:30am (5 min): Announce breakouts and explain format: 1) attendees choose a table to sit at, 2) repeat introductions, 3) choose a scribe, 3) talk in detail with the other participants about the topic, surfacing key questions, concerns, strategies, and 4) in the last 15 minutes, synthesize the notes by the scribe into key takeaways in shared document
9:35am (45 min): Breakouts round 1; reminder to synthesize with 15 min left – Identify the most pressing questions you have related to your breakout (Enter core pressing questions for panel in Poll Everywhere (have people up/downvote questions)
10:20am (10 min): Break
10:30am (45 min): Panel Discussion: Panelists answer questions from participants as a group
11:15am (15 min): Break (Panelists decide what they want to talk about more)
11:30am (60 min): Inverted Panel Discussion: Panelists move to separate tables to focus on specific topics with smaller groups. Participants are encouraged to migrate between tables as they see fit.
12:30pm (75 min): Meal break (Encourage socialization, no formal structure)
1:45pm (45 min): In breakouts, contribute to communal notes on what are some takeaways for you, for your colleagues, for new hires, for other participants of this event who weren’t at your table, and for administrators.
2:30pm (15 min): Share SMART goals, takeaways, action items, etc. with the whole room.
2:45pm (5 min): Prompt to go socialize with people they met! Happy hour.

Organizers

Geoffrey Herman, University of Illinois, glherman@illinois.edu (Chair)
Logan Paul, Indiana University Bloomington, lopaul@iu.edu
Borja Sotomayor, University of Chicago, borja@cs.uchicago.edu
Lisa Yan, University of California, Berkeley, yanlisa@eecs.berkeley.edu
Jeffrey A. Turkstra, Purdue University, jeff@purdue.edu
Joshua L. Weese, Kansas State University, weeser@ksu.edu
Tali Moreshet, Boston University, talim@bu.edu

FAQs

Q: How is this event different from similar SIGCSE events?
A: The proposed event complements existing SIGCSE events targeted at teaching faculty and instructors. More specifically,
- The Professional Development Session for New and Aspiring Educators (offered at SIGCSE 2024) is targeted at academic-oriented graduate students, postdocs, and pre-tenure faculty interested in general questions about teaching, job searching for teaching positions, and teaching careers.
- The Professional Development for Teaching Faculty Pre-Symposium (this event) is targeted at teaching-track faculty in Ph.D. granting departments. The focus is on professional development and career advancement for teaching-track faculty in a research department. The event does not cover teaching, classroom management practices, or job searching. Graduate students and post-docs will be considered as space allows.
Q: Is there a limit on the number of participants?
A: Yes. The maximum number of participants is about 70. Should the number of applications exceed this number, the number of applications accepted from one department will likely be limited.
Q: Is there funding available to attend the workshop?
A: We are currently working on securing funding to provide travel assistance to participants who would otherwise find it challenging to attend the workshop. We will follow up with more details to accepted applicants (at the moment, we cannot guarantee that funding will be available).