CPPSET Newsletter

Greetings from King Hall on the first day of spring, 2022. We have many things to share with you below so I won't share any additional thoughts with you at this time. Do know, though, that Joe and I appreciate each and everyone of you and that we are always looking for new ways to support your work.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns. All things CPPSET may be found on our Google Site and I can be reached by phone at x2853 or at my individual email (justadmj@guilford.edu) or via the center's email address (cppset@guilford.edu).

Mark

• Call for Proposals
• Recent Educational Development Awards
  
• Upcoming Events
• Updates
• People, Friends, and Partners
• About CPPSET
  

The Center for Principled Problem Solving and Excellence in Teaching is seeking letters of interest for 2022-2023 CPPSET Faculty Fellowships. Full-time tenure-track and tenured faculty as well as continuing faculty with 5 years of continuous teaching at Guilford are eligible for this opportunity. The deadline for submitting letters is Monday, March 28th, 2022 (more information below).

This is a part-time obligation and time and effort expectations are set in discussion with the CPPSET staff and with each faculty member’s interests and standing commitments in mind. For more information or to apply, click here.

Part of Guilford's Edge is to support students develop ethical leadership skills and knowledge. CPPSET and the Faculty Development and Excellence in Teaching and Learning Technologies Advisory Committees offer funding for individuals to draft white papers to explore
- how the history, method, content, or problems of your particular discipline might enhance Guilford students' understanding, goals, and practices related to ethical leadership, and
- how a more intentional focus on ethical leadership in your discipline might inform and advance the work of the discipline itself.

Any faculty member can write a white paper for their department or for an academic program they are affiliated with (including interdisciplinary majors, as well as minors). The award will be a stipend of $1000 to the individual applicant. If there is a team of authors for a white paper, awardees will be able to share the stipend. The paper should be around 10 pages long, though it can be longer.

Proposals are due by March 30th. If you are ready to submit a proposal earlier, there is also a January 30th deadline available. White paper final drafts are due by the beginning of classes, Fall 2022.

The combined Faculty Development and Excellence in Teaching and Learning Technologies Advisory Committees and CPPSET staff will evaluate all applications and respond with an explanation of any approved funding. Please note that decisions are based on the specifics of each project, as well as the overall budget situation of the funds we manage. In an effort to spread funding to more individuals, we take into account how much each individual has received in the past couple of years.

Recipients of are required to submit the final white paper to CPPSET (cppset@guilford.edu). It is recommended that recipients also share the white paper with their department.

We have work we need to do together to rebalance workload given our small faculty and staff. If you have any ideas about potential collaborations, cross-trainings, consolidations, or anything along those lines that will help us meet our educational mission more effectively, please get together with a small group of people and write a couple of paragraphs about your goals for a retreat.

If your retreat proposal has a clear educational outcome, the FDET committee can fund food for your retreat (up to $25 per person), and can pay a modest stipend of $150 for a day’s work.

Departments or programs (such as an interdisciplinary major) can apply. This includes staff departmental retreats with clear pedagogical goals and educational outcomes.

The combined Faculty Development and Excellence in Teaching and Learning Technologies Advisory Committees and CPPSET staff will evaluate all applications and respond with an explanation of any approved funding. Please note that decisions are based on the specifics of each project, as well as the overall budget situation of the funds we manage. In an effort to spread funding to more individuals, we take into account how much each individual has received in the past couple of years.

How much we are able to fund depends on how many eligible applications we receive. So we may be able to fund a particular type of cost one year, and not the next.

Recipients of Educational Development Grants are required to complete a post-project survey. Providing us with detailed responses helps us to make decisions in the future and also helps us make the case to donors and potential donors for the value of educational development funds for the work of the college.

Those receiving grant funds will receive instructions for documentation requirements related to purchasing and reimbursement.

Please email Joe Wiinikka-Lydon at cppset@guilford.edu if you have any questions.

Internal grants for educational development are available for all teaching faculty. A complete list of the funding sources and their respective application criteria can be found here. The online application can be found here.

Applications are accepted on a continuing basis but are evaluated and funded following four submission deadlines: Sept 30th, November 30th, March 30th, and April 30th. We will send out reminders closer to the deadlines but please keep these dates in mind as you plan your work for the year.

We are fortunate to have the continuing financial support from our PPS Endowment and our Mellon Grant for Edge related faculty development. These $1,000 grants are available to support projects in four areas as described in this document.

The PPS Endowment continues to offer educational development grants for faculty and staff for work that advances values-based teaching and learning. Support for individuals, departments, or programs are described on the Center's Grant Applications page.

Note: The range of grants and those eligible to receive them has expanded and the term "Educational Development Grants" is now being used in place of "Faculty Development Grants".

After the January 30th deadline, the FDET/LTAC committee awarded 12 proposals drawing from PPS endowment funds, Mellon funds, Keiser-Stoneburner Endwoment Funds, and grants from the Kenan Fund for Improvement of Teaching. Grants totaled nearly $13,000 in support. They included:

• 7 awards to individual staff and faculty members to attend professional conferences
• 1 award to a graduate student to co-present at a conference with their Guilford professor
• 2 to attend trainings needed to develop new and continuing courses
• 1 for a new three-week course to pay for stipends for guests presenters
• 1 for staff support for an internship course
  

The CPPSET Board of Advisors will meet next month for our annual discussion of CPPSET matters broadly speaking. BoA Chair, Dan Mosca, and our external and internal members will be catching up on new and developing CPPSET and related matters. Covid has kept us apart over the past two years so we are looking forward to this in-person meeting.

For the Educational Development Workshop on April 5th, there will be a special performance of "The Revolutionists" by Laura Gunderson to be performed for the Faculty/Staff. This not only allows us to showcase the great work of the Theater Studies program, but also gives everyone a chance to come together and celebrate. It will take place at Sternberger Theater at 3:15pm; we are hoping to also stream it for those not able to attend. There will also be refreshments for attendees.

This production is truly a community endeavor:

• 3 senior Theatre Majors are performing their Capstone Senior Projects.
• Staff are also performing.
  
• The set is being created collaboratively by the cast and members of the Theater Studies department.
  
• The running time is 2 hours with intermission (120 total)

The plot: Four beautiful, badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, girl-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world. It’s a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection…that ends in a song and a scaffold.

The CPPSET Faculty Fellowship offers Guilford College faculty members the opportunity to advance the work of Principled Problem Solving or Ethical Leadership broadly speaking over the course of an academic year. During that period, fellowship recipients work directly with the CPPSET staff to shape and advance the priorities of the Center and to advance a project of their choosing. The fellowship project will be consistent with the faculty member’s experience and interests and developed in conversation with the Center staff. Possible projects may include but are not limited to a targeted hands-on PPS project, a PPS research undertaking, creating new or retooling existing syllabi to match PPS priorities, PPS course or project development.

Jill Peterfeso (Religious Studies and Ethics) has been researching the "crisis" in the humanities and how humanities departments can help students understand how the humanities can help them in reaching their personal and professional goals. Jill has made connections with a number of organizations, as well, and is in the process of apply her knowledge gained at Guilford and in conversation with colleagues.

Julie Winterich (SOAN) recently completed a study, "Guilford College Thrivers Study: Students who Love Guilford." In cooperation with Wess Daniels at the Friends Center and Annie Hargrave, the study is based on five focus group discussions to explore the experiences of engaged students at Guilford College to inform recruitment, retention, and marketing. They successfully interviewed 21 juniors and seniors in November and December 2021. Julie and Wess are currently reaching out to the Guilford community to share their findings and working with CPPSET to find ways to use the findings pedagogically.

The PPS Experience Minor guided by Professor Diya Abdo will resume in the fall of 2022. A two-year course of study with volunteer and project-based components, this minor collaborates closely with the ECAR program on campus and beyond. Look for PPS 151 on course schedule in the fall both in 2022 and 2023.

Will Pizio (Justice and Policy Studies) and Mark Dixon (Art, XD) shared risks they took in their courses and lessons learned. Both reflected on the tension so many instructors feel between making sure their courses are challenging and transformational but also compassionately responsive to students' needs during troubling times. Their presentations and the following discussion was a masterclass in taking risks in the classroom. A recording is available on CPPSET's google site.

Kyle presented on his work in South Africa and Namibia during faculty lunch on March 23rd. He discussed not only his work but the networks and connections he helped create during his time at Rutgers University.

Through Guilford's Edge, the college committed itself to developing students into ethical leaders. Through a new coordinator of ethical leadership, Amanda Szabo-Huff, and the faculty-staff Ethical Leadership Council, and CPPSET, the college is developing concrete resources for ethical leadership on campus.

This past year, CPPSET added ethical leadership to its mission, allowing it to better support related initiatives at Guilford:

• There will soon be a MY CQ where students will be able to engage ethical leadership
• A new student fellowship program will be starting next year. The Council is currently reviewing 15 applications for the program and organizing second-round interviews. Fellows will be selected from this year's pool of accepted, incoming students.
  
• The fellowship program is funded by a generous commitment from the Mosca Family. Already, their leadership is inspiring others to give as well, as another donor has recently committed to fund an additional three Ethical Leadership fellows starting next fall.
• A separate committee is reviewing 23 applicants for a Visiting Assistant Professor who will provide courses in both Ethical Leadership and Philosophy.
  

Educational Development awards are reviewed and decided on by the joint Faculty Development and Excellence in Teaching (FDET) committee and the Learning Technology Advisory Committee (LTAC). Members include:

• Suzanne Bartels (Hege), LTAC co-chair
• Chad Phillips (Theater), LTAC co-chair
  
• Michele Malotky (Biology), FDET co-chair
• Joe Wiinikka-Lydon (CPPSET), FDET co-chair
• Gloria Thornton (IT&S), LTAC
  
• Garrett Collins (Hege), LTAC
  
• Michael Dutch (Business), LTAC
• Cynthia Nearman (English), FDET
• Sarah Thuesen (History), FDET
• Timothy Kircher (History), FDET
  
• Mark Justad (CPPSET), FDET ex officio
  

2021-2022 CPPSET Faculty Fellows

This year's CPPSET Faculty Fellows are Eric Mortensen in Religious Studies, Jill Peterfeso, also in Religious Studies, and Julie Winterich in Sociology and Anthropology. Please keep your eyes out for an announcement of an afternoon Tea and Talk with this year's fellows where they will share their projects with us. The CPPSET Faculty Fellowship program is supported by the PPS Endowment.

CPPSET Student Fellows for 2021-2022

We are delighted to welcome Diyaa Kaufman and Alina Santos to the Center for student fellowships with us. Student Fellows support the on-going work of the Center and use their creative energy to shape new efforts as well. This year's fellows will be supporting the development and launch of the CPPSET PPS/Ethical Leadership Innovation Lab. Alina, a graduate of the PPS Scholars Program and a former PPSSP Student Mentor, is a senior majoring in Sports & Exercise Sciences and Health Sciences. Diyaa, who is also a graduate of the PPS Scholars Program, is a junior majoring in International Studies (Asian Studies) and Economics.

PPS Scholars Program

The 2021-2022 PPS Scholars are finishing their small group projects and preparing for summer PPS internships. A comprehensive list of the internships completed by previous PPS Scholars across the years can be found here.

Applications for the 2022-2023 PPS Scholars Program are now being accepted. The deadline for application is Friday, March 25th. Complete details can be found here.

The PPS Scholars Program is guided by CPPSET Director Mark Justad.

The Guilford College CPPSET houses the Principled Problem Solving and the Excellence in Teaching programs. PPS includes a focus on both problem solving and ethical leadership. A unique academic center with a engaged teaching and learning focus, CPPSET develops and supports innovative programming for students as they seek to apply the practical liberal arts to real world problems. The Center also partners with Guilford faculty and staff in developing and supporting innovative educational development programs. To find out more, visit our website linked below or email us at cppset@guilford.edu.

Email: cppset@guilford.edu
Website: https://sites.google.com/guilford.edu/cppset/home?authuser=0
Location: 5800 West Friendly Avenue, Greensboro, NC, USA
Phone: (336) 316-2853
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cppsatguilfordcollege