Tracey Birdwell, PhD, and Chris Morett talked about how active learning can impact student-faculty connection, including faculty approachability, students' sense of community, and the stream of feedback from students to instructor.

Tracey shared ideas not just about course design and pedagogy but how to implement new practices in reality and then scale them across the institution. At the time, Tracey was the Director of the Mosaic Initiative at Indiana University, Bloomington but has since been named Assistant Director for Faculty Support at Purdue’s Center for Instructional Excellence.

In this episode, Flower Darby discusses how to promote faculty approachability and faculty-student engagement in challenging contexts such as online and large-enrollment courses. She presents practical approaches that can be applied in these contexts without too much preparation time for faculty.

She also discusses how education has changed in recent years, due both to the pandemic and other forces, and what some other directions for change might be.

Shannon Dowling joins the Faculty Approachability projeect to discuss how campus spaces can support faculty approachability and faculty-student engagement, and drive diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging more generally.

Shannon discusses, among other things, the work she completed as part of her Society for College and University Planning fellowship, which culminated in a report entitled, “The Planning and Design of Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Spaces.”

Jessica Bantom joins us to discuss the design process and how to include a range of viewpoints. and what stakeholder inclusion and design tactics facilitate diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Jessica is the author of Design for Identity: How to Design Authentically for a Diverse World. After this episode, she went onto become Global Leader for Equity, Diversity, and belonging at DLR Group and she also teaches at Marymount University.

In this episode, we had a great panel of students who had just completed their first year of college. They reflected on their experiences and impressions of faculty members and talked about the kinds of strategies and approaches they would suggest for enhancing student-faculty connection and student belonging.

One question we asked them: How many of their faculty members did they think knew their name.

Host Chris Morett talks with higher ed tech maven Julie Johnston about AI in higher education, including how it might free faculty up from mundane tasks, scale processes, and help with teaching design. Julie, now with Avaya, brings a depth of experience from her time working at Indiana University-Bloomington and as a volunteer with Educause.

Chris and Julie also discuss the risks of AI and the ways in which humans continue to matter in an AI world.

If we want faculty to play a role in developing and supporting students, we need to develop and support faculty. In this episode, we talked with Dr. Terrell Strayhorn on his reflections from research and practice on how institutions can create environments in which faculty can flourish.

Dr. Strayhorn is Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Center for the Study of HBCUs at Virginia Union University. He is also President/CEO of Do Good Works Consulting Group.

In this episode we talked with we talk with Danielle Farage about how faculty approachability and engagement can prepare students to build networks and productive relationships that support career satisfaction and success. She'll also reflect on her experience as a student, with practical takeaways for students and institutions of higher education alike.

Farage, a LinkedIn Top Voice for Gen Z and Top 50 Future of Work Speaker and Influencer, is Director of Growth and Marketing at Café.

Host Chris Morett talks with Brittany Maschal and Julie McNair, who work with students on the college search process, about what prospective applicants look for in a college in terms of being able to approach and engage with faculty, how institutions can convey what kind of faculty-student engagement they offer, and what happens once students enroll.

Faculty approachability should be defined broadly. This post is not meant to strictly define “faculty approachability” but rather to give a sense of how the idea can range.