At least 15% of the undergraduate student population at the University of Dayton self-identifies as LGBTQ+. As a Catholic, Marianist university, our institution is committed to honoring the intrinsic value of all people and fostering a community where all members feel welcome, respected and valued. This interactive workshop, led by a current student peer educator from Q*Mmunity Leaders, will explore strategies and best practices for inclusive pedagogy in and out of the classroom that have positive impacts on LGBTQ+ students’ sense of belonging, mental health, and academic success. Participants will hear the perspectives of current UD students, learn about evidence-based best practices for LGBTQ+ inclusive pedagogy, and become familiar with sources for continued learning.

Successful community-engaged learning and teaching is reliant on forging trust and authentic relationships between teachers, students, and community partners. Bro. Ray Fitz developed the Leadership in Building Communities course 27 years ago and will share lessons and insights gained over his nearly three decades of teaching this community-engaged course at the University of Dayton. The other panelists will discuss more recent experiences with the course from both the teaching perspective and from the perspective of a community partner. Attendees will learn about effective strategies for teaching, learning, and partnering in community-engaged courses, as well as challenges and obstacles to navigating community partnerships in community-engaged courses. The session will conclude with an interactive discussion about ideas for expanding community-engaged learning opportunities at the University of Dayton.

The University of Dayton Integrative Science and Engineering (ISE) Center was designed to foster interdisciplinary research and scholarship to address emerging challenges affecting populations on a local, regional, and global level through research and discovery. As a vital part of integrative research teams, undergraduate and graduate students gain authentic research experience and training to become the next generation of scientists and engineers using integrated approaches to solve broad challenges of societal relevance. In the Spring 2023, an ISE Strategic Planning Team of faculty representatives from the CAS and SOE was convened by the Deans of the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering to revise and expand the focus of the ISE based on the following charge:

(1) Expand the curricular components and pedagogy for integrating science and engineering

(2) Foster interdisciplinary faculty research and student learning

(3) Enhance entrepreneurship and innovation in support of economic development with patents and licenses

The ISE Strategic Planning Team invites you to contribute to the evolution of this vision by participating in this collaborative and consultative session, where panelists will discuss themes that have emerged in the Strategic Planning Team discussions and solicit attendee feedback and ideas on how to further address the charge that will shape the future of the ISE Center.

The past isn't past in the Marian Library: from class visits to curating digital exhibits, the Marian Library’s collaborations with teaching faculty and students have produced new, only-at-UD learning experiences. Eighty years of collecting with the motto “Never enough about Mary” mean that the Marian Library has deep and unexpected resonances far beyond Catholic theology, from first-year English students to teacher education majors.

In this session, three Marian Library faculty members representing different areas of the Marian collections – archives, art, and rare books/published collections – will share a brief presentation on recent experiential learning projects in the Marian Library, and lead brainstorming with attendees across disciplines to connect attendees’ goals for experiential learning and Marianist education to library collections. Instructors from within and outside traditional areas of partnership are encouraged to attend and find new perspectives on the Marian Library’s collections.

As professionals in higher education, it is natural for us to recognize the need to write as a means to advance our disciplines. And most, if not all of us, had professional experiences outside of UD where our ability to produce effective written communication helped to sustain or advance our work. But it has been my experience teaching college composition and supervising the Write Place that many of our students do not consider themselves writers. Yet they had to write to get into UD! How can we help them adopt an author’s mindset? What classroom strategies can we leverage to give students more confidence in their written communication skills? This session will explore some strategies and highlight how strength in writing is also about being able to give and receive feedback. Please feel free to share any assignments or activities you have used to help students grow as writers.

The University of Dayton, committed to its Catholic Marianist tradition of education, strives to educate the whole person, emphasizes shared responsibility and collaboration, and believes that education can transform society if people work together. A student-centered, social, experiential and active learning classroom is an ideal venue to encourage student responsibility of their learning, relationship and community building, as well as inclusivity. This session will showcase the innovative learning space that is the LTC Studio, provide a brief introduction to student-centered, social and active learning, and show concrete examples of a variety of activities that various faculty members have successfully implemented in this learning space. These activities, based on current learning theory, can be easily adapted across disciplines and applied in other learning spaces. Time will be set aside for questions, discussion, and sharing of how attendees use student-centered, social and active learning in their own learning spaces.

This interactive session seeks to rediscover and redefine the essence of holistic education within the Marianist tradition, with a steadfast commitment to bridging divides and advancing the common good. Key objectives include benchmarking perspectives of both students and staff on the facets of holistic education imbued with the Marianist spirit and integrating pedagogical strategies that incorporate ongoing assessments and dialogues to uphold these principles effectively. The session includes small group discussions, observing and sharing feedback on behaviors indicative of the five core elements defining the Marianist approach to education, synthesizing collective observations, and culminating in creating a comprehensive repository of developmental opportunities. This training session aspires to foster an inclusive educational environment that supports ongoing enhancement in educational delivery and upholds the cherished Marianist values, propelling the institution towards a more deeply integrated and enriching educational experience for all stakeholders.

Through a toolkit workshop faculty will be able to develop strategies for crafting their tenure and promotion files to reflect and highlight their community engaged research, pedagogy, and activities. The toolkit provides a hands-on opportunity to explore your community engagement work that charts both obvious pathways for articulating your work, as as well as less the less obvious pathways of understanding this work as a type of intellectual leadership. Workshop leaders will work with you through the toolkit with the goal of faculty leaving with clear ways to frame their community engagement work in their T&P file. Please bring your CV with you to this workshop and your department/school/college language for T&P.

This group of panelists meets weekly to discuss issues related to student success and retention. They also meet monthly with a larger representative body called the Student Success and Retention Team. The panelists will share how they work collaboratively to promote student success and retention by bringing together the perspectives of their respective areas, as well those of the campus partners with whom they work. They will discuss some of the initiatives they have been working on and plan to work on in the near future.

Digital assignments afford students opportunities to grapple with their roles as digital citizens, encouraging reflection on information consumption and their responsibilities as knowledge creators within the disciplinary context of a course. Libraries and Archives are laboratories, equipped with materials, spaces, tools, and experts poised to facilitate experiential learning through the creation of creative and collaborative digital projects.

This workshop is a crash course in re-engineering coursework and adopting digital projects in your classroom – with purpose. Attendees will bring a ‘traditional’ assignment and work backwards to identify opportunities for enhancing students’ learning with and through technology, both as classroom learners and as members of a larger community. We will discuss the purpose and implications of augmenting assignments with digital tools, and develop strategies for integrating technology into existing coursework. Attendees will leave with the information and resources they need to begin planning for digital curriculum and assignments for the Fall semester.

This session will connect the Fitz Center's Practiced Principles for Community Engagement to our Marianist Charism. Participants in this session will get a better understanding of what Community Engagement and Community Engaged Learning is here at the University of Dayton, as well as a better understanding of best practices as it relates to partnership with the community. This session will also highlight resources available to faculty and staff around community engagement.

Indigo is an ancient dye with a rich historical and social significance. From the cultivation and commerce of indigo plant, the extraction and preparation of the dye, to the incredibly diverse range of textile and medicinal applications, indigo comes with endless stories. In this forum "how-to" workshop, Professor Suki Kwon (Art and Design) and Dr. Yvonne Sun (Biology) will briefly introduce the indigo dye and facilitate an interactive workshop for participants to imagine incorporating indigo into their design of lessons or student activities. Collectively, we will create a comprehensive learning experience to intentionally connect lessons inside and outside the classrooms. Through participant contributions, we will showcase how indigo crosses curricular and co-curricular activities to educate the whole student.

Panel with two presentations:

• Alison Witte: X Marks the Spot: Mapping Students Understandings of Support Resources on UD’s Campus
• Jessica Gregor and Paul Gregor: Virtual Academic Coaching (vAC): A Practical Technology for Student Engagement

Living and learning go hand-in-hand at the University of Dayton and Housing and Residence Life has implemented a curricular approach to the residential experience in order to foster authentic relationship-building strategies that simultaneously create transformational education opportunities for students to engage in learning around topics such as vocation, conflict resolution, social identity, adapting to and influencing change, and compromise. In this ‘how-to’ workshop, participants will not only learn more about the strategies being used to engage students in residential learning but will have the opportunity to actually experience examples of intentionally designed pedagogical approaches being used on campus.

In addition to learning more about this residential curriculum, we will cover the assessment strategies being employed with each one and discuss what we have learned about students, as a result.

As the University of Dayton seeks to distinguish itself through curricular innovation and creating a holistic, integrated and relationship rich learning environment for our students it is evident that doing so with an equitable mind frame is the secret sauce for success. Engaging all students in a meaningful and holistic learning experience where all students participate in rich development opportunities and persist to graduation at higher rates requires a deeper understanding of the why. (ex. Why are some students not engaging? Why do some students fall through the cracks? Why are some students unsatisfied with their University of Dayton experience?) Only through an equitable mind frame can we achieve a collective, deep and complex understanding of why and build greater capacity to develop solutions which address the root causes and lead to greater and more equitable outcomes.

Creating an equitable culture which develops effective solutions and yields greater outcomes requires an intentional immersion in one's own development as an equity-minded practitioner. This developmental journey is relevant to all institutional agents including all administrators, leaders, faculty, and staff who are the gatekeepers of the systems and processes which govern the student-centered operations of the institution. The book From Equity Talk to Equity Walk by Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey E. Malcom-Piqueux is the framework by which this workshop will engage attendees in an interactive discussion.

This transformative session will delve into the topic of Imposter Syndrome from various angles. First, we will discuss our study on imposter syndrome to gain insights into its manifestation and effects. Next, we will explore how imposter syndrome infiltrates our professional and personal lives, shedding light on the challenges it poses. Through examining current research on imposter syndrome, we will unravel its complexities and discover potential strategies for mitigation. Ultimately, this session will engage participants in transformative conversations, providing a safe space to share personal experiences, learn from one another, and enhance our journey towards authenticity and self-assurance.

The purpose is threefold. First, I will describe my long-term (12-year-old) and ongoing (and funded) transdisciplinary participatory community action research initiative – the Behavioral Activation Research Project in Homeless Shelters. In this part of the presentation, I will describe my ongoing long-term campus-community collaborative partnership with St. Vincent de Paul, as well as note the contributions of other campus-community partnerships. It will be explained that the Project has served as an “infrastructure” for student-driven independent studies. Our strategy (and success) in sustaining the Project during the pandemic will be briefly discussed. Second, I will review research (quantitative and qualitative) over the years demonstrating that the Project has significant benefits for (a) the psychological functioning of shelter residents and (b) the civic development of undergraduate service-learning students serving as research assistants. Third, the above discussion will set the stage for review of student-driven studies that have been conducted within the infrastructure of the Project since the pandemic. There will be a special focus on a recent study completed by an undergraduate honors thesis student that involved the following: the Montgomery County (Ohio) Office of Reentry (one of our collaborative partners); developing and implementing an intervention for shelter residents with a history of incarceration; and conducting a study (quantitative and qualitative) to show that the intervention had a significant benefit on self-efficacy for success in community reentry, with residents with disabilities and residents without disabilities benefiting from the intervention. There will be an emphasis on providing time for questions and discussion.

U.S. universities’ always focus to enrich their students’ on-campus experiences. However, international students still encounter challenges as they transition to their new lives in the United States. Such hardship can relate to factors like the lack of awareness of the international students’ cultural dimensions. This presentation will focus on the effects of raising the awareness of international students cultural dimensions in U.S. colleges through implementing the knowledge among faculty and staff about the different cultural dimensions of international students population. Leading to a better intercultural understanding on university campuses.