Academic Learning Communities

The Center for Faculty Development and Excellence (CFDE) is calling for proposals for Academic Learning Communities for 2024-2025.  

Call for Proposals: Academic Learning Communities 2024-2025

1. “Academic Integrity and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education” 

Conveners:  Jason Ciejka, Associate Dean in the Office for Undergraduate Education, & Blaire Wilson, Senior Associate Director of the Honor Council 

Academic integrity plays a central role in student learning; yet, institutions of higher education far too often treat academic integrity as a peripheral issue and tend to sweep any perceived issues around cheating under the rug. Recent developments in higher education, including the rise of artificial intelligence and contract cheating, the awareness of equity and inclusion as crucial values, and the renaissance of honor codes, all speak to the importance of engaging academic integrity as a campus-wide effort among students, faculty, and administrators. This Academic Learning Community focuses especially on the role of faculty and pedagogy in promoting academic integrity.  

To learn more and/or to apply, please fill out this form here.

2. “Building a Community of Healthcare Simulation Educators”

Convener: LisaMarie Wands, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing

The need for and importance of interprofessional (IP) education of health care professional students is well-known. IP collaboration and communication is inherent to effective patient care, and students need the opportunity to build these skills during their educational experience and development. Using simulation as a teaching/learning strategy involves creating a situation or environment that represents a real health care event (Lioce et al., 2020). Use of simulation to support IP education has been shown to be an effective teaching modality by providing learners with contextually-realistic clinical situations. Students can be placed in simulated patient care situations and work together to solve problems and create collaborative plans of care for optimal patient outcomes. This Academic Learning Community seeks to connect health care professions educators in discussion and creation of opportunities for students to learn “about, from, and with each other” (WHO, 2010, p. 10) in IP simulation-based learning activities. We will discuss best practices, identify challenges, and formulate strategies for implementation. 

To learn more and/or to apply, please contact LisaMarie Wands at lisa.m.wands@emory.edu

3. “Creating Relational Accountability through Indigenous Studies”

Conveners: Malinda Maynor Lowery (Lumbee), Department of History; Laura Harjo (Muscogee), Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Indigenous Knowledge 

What is relational accountability, and why should it matter at Emory? Who should practice it? How does Native American and Indigenous Studies foreground this principle in its ethics, foundational knowledge, and intellectual commitments? When is relational accountability a useful framework for other forms of inquiry? When and how should we employ relational accountability in producing knowledge within and beyond the academy? 

“Relational accountability” is a term traditionally applied to research; in short, it is a state of exchange or dialogue between researcher and participants, where the researcher is accountable to those who participate in the research. 

This academic learning community seeks to engage this core question with faculty whose interests may touch on Indigenous peoples, colonialism, decolonization, and related areas of study. Faculty from all disciplines and focus areas are welcome, though the main content of the readings, speakers, and discussions will focus on Indigenous people in North America and critical Indigenous studies. We intend to investigate how relational accountability, as practiced within and in partnership with Indigenous communities in North America, can shape research and teaching at Emory. The discussions will produce proposals for course development and possible travel to the Muscogee Nation (funded by the Mellon Foundation) and assist in the development of Emory’s minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies. 

To learn more and/or to apply, please fill out this form here.

Fall 2023 ALCs

1. “Climate Justice” 

Conveners: bryn davis, Emory College of Arts and Sciences, Mindy Goldstein, School of Law, Kyle Lambelet, Candler School of Theology, Wesley Longhofer, Goizueta Business School 

Brief description: Many researchers are concerned with the disproportionate ways in which the climate crisis intersects with social, racial, and economic injustice. Yet, while climate justice may be a shared aspiration in our research, teaching, or community work, its meanings, uses, and implications vary widely across disciplines. This definitional challenge reflects a wider problem: how do we pursue climate justice when the term has been used for many (sometimes, incongruent) aims. This Academic Learning Community seeks to 1) develop meaningful, shared understandings of climate justice across disciplines, and 2) use that collective wisdom for guiding Emory’s research engagement on climate justice. Our proposed ALC sessions below will create a space for gentle curiosity and disciplined intention while locating concordance and discordance amongst individual understandings and collective discourse on climate justice.  

To learn more and/or to apply, please fill out this form here. 

2. “Intersections: Humanity, Sustainability, and Computers + AI”

Conveners: Chinmay Kulkarni, Computer Science, and Azra Ismail, Biomedical Informatics

Brief description: We are bringing together faculty that are experts in AI, human-computer interaction, sustainability, Internet of Things and physical computing, data visualization, global health, and AI deployments in the developing world. Together, these experts will engage both in sharing scholarship (papers written by them and by other eminent scholars in the field) and engage in conversations with each other (and guest speakers, where appropriate).  

To learn more and/or to apply, please fill out this form here. 

Academic Learning Community: “Building Anti-Racist Community in Theological Education”(please note that this ALC is only for Candler faculty)

How can these early career faculty build an anti-racist community of solidarity together while also working for broader institutional and pedagogical change? What theological resources are available to support this work? 
To learn more and/or to apply, please contact Deanna Womack at deanna.f.womack@emory.edu or Helen Kim at helenjkim@emory.edu  

Previous Academic Learning Communities

Archived descriptions of Previous Academic Learning Communities between 2012 and 2023 are available for review.