A new Center for Faculty Excellence will support faculty research initiatives and leadership roles on campus.
The center formerly known as the Center for Teaching and Learning" will continue to focus on helping faculty improve how they teach through workshops and individual consultations.
""There's already a lot of good things going on"" said Todd Zakrajsek, executive director of the new center. It's just a matter of collaborating those efforts.""
Zakrajsek joined UNC in late August. Before coming here"" Zakrajsek was an associate professor of psychology at Central Michigan University and an administrator at Southern Oregon University.
He built similar faculty centers at both schools.
""The biggest thing is the experience of working with faculty"" Zakrajsek said about the knowledge he's brought from his previous positions.
The center has not yet developed concrete plans for how to fulfill its new research and leadership goals because it hasn't hired coordinators for those areas, he said.
Before fall ends" we'll have programming in those areas" Zakrajsek said.
The former center primarily focused on supporting faculty in their classroom responsibilities, he said.
We've spent a lot of time building on that strength"" Zakrajsek said.
The center will hold a series of workshops in the fall that will provide advice on teaching strategies.
These workshops, which were also offered by the old center, include ways to use games in the classroom, how to build a dynamic syllabus"" how to deal with teaching anxiety and how to teach a diverse student body.
Those workshops now will be taught by faculty members who will be paired with center staff members, said Patrick Conway, faculty director of the center.
They used to be taught by the staff of the center" who are very good but they're not the people with faculty responsibilities Conway said.
UNC biology assistant professor Greg Copenhaver said he attended some of the former center's workshops when he began teaching in 2001.
He said he thinks the new center's involvement with research will be beneficial to the University and the community.
The center has issued calls for (research) proposals that require an aspect of community outreach" Copenhaver said.
I think that can be a really fantastic idea. I think it's a way of educating the community about the research we do here and integrating the University into the community.""
Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
